Although the global Covid pandemic continued to be felt around the world, war returning to Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is what 2022 will mainly be remembered for.
The invasion of Ukraine in March – the largest armed conflict in Europe since the Second World War – came as global economies struggled with the lingering economic fall-out of the pandemic. The disruption of energy supplies from Russia piled further pressure on European nations, leading to various cost-of-living crises in the latter half of the year.
In the UK specifically, 2022 was a year of political upheaval in which three Conservative prime ministers called No. 10 their home. A series of ethics scandals and an unprecedented number of his own ministers – over 50 – quitting the government led to the resignation of Boris Johnson in July.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Conservative Party voted to replace Johnson with Liz Truss, but a disastrous mini-budget sealed her fate as the shortest-serving PM in British history and she resigned after just 44 days in the post. Truss was replaced by Johnson’s one-time chancellor, Rishi Sunak, the first person of colour to become prime minister.
The nation also said goodbye to its longest-serving monarch and head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September aged 96. Mourners waited for more than 30 hours to file past the Queen’s coffin as she lay in state at Westminster Hall, with the queue stretching over ten miles at its longest. Her eldest son, Charles, will be officially crowned King Charles III at a coronation ceremony scheduled to take place in May.
To find out how closely you’ve been paying attention to all the big news – good and bad – over the past year, have a go at our quiz of the year:
Need a reminder of the other events of 2022?
- Just as the world thought it had fought off one virus, an outbreak of monkeypox made headlines.
- Shortly before the Queen’s death, the country celebrated the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee, marking her seven decades on the throne over a four-day bank holiday weekend.
- Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra was crowned the winner of Eurovision 2022, but the ongoing war means this year’s song contest will be held in Liverpool.
- Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful ever built, sent back stunning images of Jupiter, showing the solar system’s biggest planet in new detail.
- Japan’s former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was assassinated during a campaign rally in the city of Nara.
- Qatar became the first Arab nation to host the World Cup, in a tournament mired in controversy. England crashed out in the quarter-finals, losing 2-1 to France.
- US scientists made a major breakthrough in the race to develop practical nuclear fusion, a process which could lead to limitless zero-carbon power.
Will California's EV mandate survive Trump, SCOTUS challenge?
'Underneath the noise, however, there’s an existential crisis'
2024: the year of distrust in science
