It’s different this time.
That was the sentiment humming in the background, and sometimes roaring quite loudly, throughout 2022. It’s what was said when young people started rising up in the streets of Iran in support of women’s rights; when the first Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine; when millions of people showed up to vote to send a country in a new direction.
The following 100 images, an unranked selection carefully curated by TIME’s eight-person team of photo editors, aim to show in pictures that this year was indeed different.
Not every photo displays profound change: images from the Westminster Dog Show, now in its 146th year, are frequently included on this annual list. But many capture a familiar scene that’s also unlike anything that’s come before. Another Supreme Court class picture, yet this time with the first ever Black female Justice. The first ascension of a monarch in the modern age. Sometimes the photo shows not the change, but the necessity of it, a reminder that the status quo cannot continue. A young boy near the scene of a school shooting where 21 people were killed. It’s different this time. It has to be.
Sometimes the same image that inspires hope for some provokes despair in others. But for a moment, when the team at NASA released the first James Webb Space Telescope image and the universe was revealed in ways never seen before, the world was unified in wonder. The same stars that have been hovering above for billions of years, only this time different.
— Katherine Pomerantz, Director of Photography
Firefighters at work against a forest fire in the village of A Cañiza, Pontevedra, Spain, on July 31.
Alberto Sxenick—EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Workers dig out copper and cobalt ore from an open-pit mine operated by artisanal mining cooperative COMAKAT in Shabaka in southern Democratic Republic of Congo, on May 6.
Laurel Chor
A general view of the vandalized office of the Sri Lankan president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, inside his official residence in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on July 15.
Abhishek Chinnappa—Getty Images
Kenya Wildlife Service rangers pour water over a giraffe they rescued and sedated just outside of Garissa on March 6. The giraffe had been caught in a snare set by poachers and, without help, would likely have been killed soon by humans or predators.
Ed Ram
Ukrainians crowd under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee crossing the Irpin river in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 5.
Emilio Morenatti—AP
One of the first images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope showing galaxy cluster SMACS 0723.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO
Women run away from anti-riot police during a protest of the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, who had been detained for violating the country's conservative dress code, in downtown Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 19.
AP
Serena Williams is seen on a video monitor tribute after winning her second round match against Estonia's Anett Kontaveit at the U.S. Open in New York on Aug. 31.
Shannon Stapleton—Reuters
Cadets practice an emergency situation during a lesson in a bomb shelter on the first day of school at a cadet lyceum in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 1.
Efrem Lukatsky—AP
Scenes on the streets of London on Sept. 9, a day after the announcement of the Queen's death.
Jack Davison for TIME
Patrick Jackson, left, husband of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, center, and daughter Leila Jackson, right, look on during confirmation hearings in Washington, on March 21.
Sarahbeth Maney—The New York Times/Redux
Mourners visit the memorial to the victims of the Uvalde school shooting at the town square in Uvalde, Texas, on May 30. In all, 21 people, 19 students and two teachers, were killed by a gunman at Robb Elementary School on May 24.
Christopher Lee—The New York Times/Redux
Emergency workers and others assist people who were caught in a Halloween stampede in the district of Itaewon in Seoul, on Oct. 29. More than 150 people were killed in the stampede.
Albert Retief—AFP/Getty Images
The Nahua community celebrating for the Maiz in Xalpatlahuac, Guerrero, Mexico, on March 27.
Yael Martinez—Magnum Photos
A field covered with craters left by shelling, close to Izium, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on Sept. 13.
Kostiantyn Liberov—AP
Peter Lyoya throws a flower into the grave of his son Patrick Lyoya, an unarmed Black man who was fatally shot and killed by a Grand Rapids Police officer during a traffic stop on April 4, during the funeral in Grand Rapids, Mich., on April 22.
Michael A. McCoy—Reuters
A demonstrator sits under an umbrella while blocking an access route to Iquique, Chile, during a regional strike called by different organizations against illegal immigration, on Jan. 31.
Diego Reyes—AFP/Getty Images
The victim of a mortar attack in Bucha lies in her kitchen on April 6.
Maxim Dondyuk
Nina, (center) and Priscilla (left), staff members of the Houston Women's Clinic, the largest abortion provider in the city, react immediately after learning of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and reverse American women's constitutional right to an abortion, on June 24.
Meridith Kohut for The New Yorker
The silos damaged in the 2020 Beirut blast, on July 22. Part of the silos collapsed on July 31, following a weeks-long blaze.
Myriam Boulos—Magnum Photos for TIME
Rescuers stand in a silent tribute for victims at the site of the China Eastern Airlines plane crash in Tengxian county, Wuzhou city, in China's southern Guangxi region, on March 27.
CNS/AFP/Getty Images
Serhii, father of teenager Iliya, cries on his son's lifeless body lying on a stretcher at a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol on March 2. Iliya was fatally wounded Wednesday while playing soccer in Mariupol when shelling started amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The explosive hit the soccer field near a school in the Azov Sea city.
Evgeniy Maloletka—AP
Pro-choice and anti-abortion activist rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on May 2, following the release of an initial draft majority opinion obtained by Politico, where Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito allegedly wrote that the cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey should be overturned.
Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images
Mikhail Kulikv, a Russian soldier sentenced to 10 years in jail after he was found guilty of firing a tank at a multi-storey apartment building in the first days of the Ukraine war, at the court in Chernihiv on Aug. 4. He was the second Russian soldier convicted in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion.
Stanislav Krupar—laif/Redux
Anti-government coca farmers walk towards the capital, marching to demand the closure of a parallel market that is promoted by a group related to the government, on the outskirts of La Paz, Bolivia, on Sept. 7.
Juan Karita—AP
Students stand in a parking lot near the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School after a reported shooting at the school in St. Louis, on Oct. 24.
David Carson—St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP
Children play on destroyed Russian war equipment in front of St. Michael‘s Monastery in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 12.
Fabian Ritter—DOCKS Collective
The body of a dead person lies covered by a shawl in an area inhabited by drug users under a bridge in Kabul, Afghanistan, on June 15. Drug addiction has long been a problem in Afghanistan, the world’s biggest producer of opium and heroin. The ranks of the addicted have been fueled by persistent poverty and by decades of war that left few families unscarred.
Ebrahim Noroozi—AP
French President and liberal party La Republique en Marche candidate for re-election Emmanuel Macron salutes people as he arrives for his first campaign meeting at the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, on the outskirts of Paris, on April 2.
Ludovic Marin—AFP/Getty Images
Two women dip their heads into the fountain to cool off in Trafalgar Square in London on July 19.
Dan Kitwood—Getty Images
Local children and their parents react to a makeshift memorial in downtown Uvalde, nearby Robb Elementary School, on May 26.
David Butow—Redux
An unveiled woman standing on top of a vehicle as thousands make their way towards Aichi cemetery in Saqez, Mahsa Amini's home town in the western Iranian province of Kurdistan, to mark 40 days since her death, defying heightened security measures as part of a bloody crackdown on women-led protests.
UGC/AFP/Getty Images
The control room at MSNBC's studio in New York City on June 9, during the first public hearing before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The hearing aired during prime time.
Sinna Nasseri—The New York Times/Redux
Blood on a curbside lawn in central Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Jan. 6, after violence that erupted following protests over hikes in fuel prices.
Alexander Bogdanov—AFP/Getty Images
Israeli police confront mourners as they carry the casket of slain Al Jazeera veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during her funeral in east Jerusalem, on May 13. Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American reporter who covered the Mideast conflict for more than 25 years, was shot dead during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin.
Maya Levin—AP
School children at a concert rehearsal at the house of culture in Petrovskyi District, Donetsk, Ukraine, where the 2014 frontline is only a few miles away, on Feb. 17.
Nanna Heitmann—Magnum Photos
Fans celebrate the final countdown next to the 2022 World Cup countdown clock before the start of the World Cup opening match between Qatar and Ecuador at the Doha's Corniche promenade, in Doha, on Nov. 20.
Patricia De Melo Moreira—AFP/Getty Images
Photographed from a television broadcast, Queen Elizabeth's coffin in the State Hearse is driven to Windsor past crowds lining the road with Prince George, second in line to the throne, in the background.
Ian Berry—Magnum Photos
Fog rolls through the Marin Headlands and Golden Gate Bridge in Sausalito, Calif., on June 11.
Nina Riggio—The New York Times/Redux
Charon Reed holds her son Koda and cries at the funeral of her grandmother, one of 10 killed in the racist massacre at a Tops grocery store, in Buffalo, N.Y., on May 24.
Gabriela Bhaskar—The New York Times/Redux
Civilians sit aboard an evacuation train in Pokrovsk, Ukraine, on Sept. 28.
Nicole Tung—The New York Times/Redux
Sphynx cats who reside in a Soon Bok cafe in Cheonan, South Korea.
Robin Schwartz for The New York Times Magazine
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, his wife Melania, Kimberly Guilfoyle, his sons Barron and Donald Jr. and his daughter Ivanka leave St. Vincent Ferrer Church during the funeral of Ivana Trump, socialite and Trump's first wife, in New York City, on July 20.
Brendan McDermid—Reuters
A bombed grain silo containing still burning grain inside in Zasillya, Ukraine, on July 16.
Wojciech Grzedzinski—The Washington Post/Getty Images
Ukrainian soldiers attend to a group of civilians, including Tetiana Perebyinis and her two children, who were mortally wounded by a Russian mortar round while they evacuated from Irpin, Ukraine, on March 6. A volunteer assisting the family was also killed.
Lynsey Addario—Getty Images
A son and daughter embrace their father, a COVID-19 patient in the ICU, before his intubation procedure at the Providence Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, Calif., on Jan. 25.
Shannon Stapleton—Reuters
Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke disrupts a press conference held by Governor Greg Abbott the day after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 25.
Veronica G. Cardenas—Reuters
Léo, 18, who is qariwarmi, a two-spirit gender from their father’s Quechua culture in Peru, at the Fiesta Youth LGBTQ Youth Prom in San Antonio. Léo likes the sense of community they find there. “There’s no judgment," they say. "You’re not a spectacle—unless you want to be a spectacle.”
Annie Flanagan for TIME
Vixen, a Golden Retriever, is groomed before competing at the 146th annual Westminster Kennel Club show in Tarrytown, NY on June 22.
Sinna Nasseri
Activists and faith groups are pictured through a sticker of former President Donald Trump as they protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions put in place across the nation at the "Defeat the Mandates American Homecoming" rally in Washington, on Jan. 23.
Shuran Huang for The Washington Post
Volunteers at a library in central Lviv, Ukraine, weave camouflage nets to send to the soldiers on the front lines on March 7.
Natalie Keyssar for TIME
Campaign posters for the current President of Angola, Joao Lourenco, are pictured on palm trees along the beach front in Luanda on Aug. 23.
John Wessels—AFP/Getty Images
An exhausted man and child rest in the Darien Gap, with a week of walking still ahead across the 66-mile stretch of jungle terrain between Colombia and Panama, on Sept. 23. Two crises are converging as record numbers of Venezuelans risk the deadly trek to reach the U.S. border: the economic and humanitarian disaster underway in South America and the bitter fight over immigration policy in Washington.
Federico Rios—The New York Times/Redux
Ukrainian emergency employees and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 9. The baby was born dead. Half an hour later, the mother died too.
Evgeniy Maloletka—AP
Vehicles rest on a bridge following its collapse, in Pittsburgh, Pa. on Jan. 28. The bridge spanning a ravine collapsed, requiring rescuers to rappel nearly 150 feet, while others formed a human chain to help rescue multiple people from a dangling bus.
Gene J. Puskar—AP
Italy's new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni walks at the Quirinale Presidential Palace, on the day of the swearing-in ceremony of Italy's new government, in Rome, Italy, on Oct. 22.
Yara Nardi—Reuters
Residents wait on the roof of their homes for the flooding to subside after Super Typhoon Noru, in San Miguel, Bulacan province, Philippines, on Sept. 26.
Eloisa Lopez—Reuters
WNBA player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, is escorted to the courtroom to hear the court's final decision, in Khimki outside Moscow, on Aug. 4.
Kirill Kudryavtsev—AFP/Getty Images
Thousands of students gather together on the University of Virginia's South Lawn on Nov. 14 for a moment of silence to honor the three students killed—Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr., and D’Sean Perry—and two wounded in a shooting on Nov. 13.
Justin Ide
Zania Muhammed comforts her malnourished son Mazzam Brahim, in the emergency medial care section for critical care patients in the ALIMA managed nutrition unit of the Chad-China Friendship Hospital in N'djamena, Chad on May 13. The unit has the capacity for 60 patients but was accepting 100 as the cases continued to rise.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds—AFP/Getty Images
A farm in Vilkhivka, Ukraine, pictured on May 14, lost 80 cows and 30 pigs during two months of Russian artillery shelling and occupation.
Carol Guzy—ZUMA
Damage caused by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers Beach, Fla. on Sept. 29.
Hilary Swift—The New York Times/Redux
People wait on the race for New York's next Governor to be called during the midterm election in New York City on Nov. 8.
Alex Kent—Getty Images
Inhabitants of Kyiv leave the city following pre-offensive missile strikes of the Russian armed forces and Belarus in Kyiv, Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Pierre Crom—Getty Images
Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, falls on the ground after being shot in Nara, western Japan, on July 8.
Kyodo/AP
A monitor screen showing a recording of Alexey Navalny at the TV studio at the Navalny office headquarters in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Jan. 12.
Rafał Milach—Magnum Photos
Cullen Savory, 19, holds a sign up to passing traffic at an International Safe Abortion Day Vigil for Legal Abortion in front of Planned Parenthood on East Ben White Boulevard in Austin, Texas, on Sept. 28.
Sara Diggins—USA TODAY NETWORK/Reuters
China's President Xi Jinping sits besides Premier Li Keqiang as former president Hu Jintao is assisted to leave from the closing ceremony of the 20th China's Communist Party's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 22.
Noel Celis—AFP/Getty Images
Members the Territorial Defense Forces who guard a large checkpoint briefly played a game of checkers with Molotov cocktails, as seen on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 5. With few vehicles passing because of the nighttime curfew, Territorial Defense members can have a moment of quiet while remaining on high alert for any suspicious activity.
Nicole Tung for Harper’s Magazine
A man looks in through a gap in a barrier in a residential area after the lockdown placed to curb the COVID-19 outbreak was lifted, in Shanghai, China, on June 7.
Aly Song—Reuters
Cecilia Cruz bathes her daughter Daleyda with bottled water that she preheated beforehand inside the family’s trailer at the Oasis Mobile Home Park in Thermal, Calif. on June 25. In 2019 the Environmental Protection Agency found that the park’s water was contaminated with arsenic at nearly 10 times the allowable limit and residents have since been warned not to use it for drinking, cooking, bathing, or brushing their teeth.
Alex Welsh for The New York Times
A child gets on a school bus as law enforcement personnel guard the scene of a shooting near Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24.
Marco Bello—Reuters
Pool chairs are stored under water in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Ian at Harbourside Condominiums in South Pasadena, Fla. on Sept. 26.
Martha Asencio-Rhine—Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA
Attendees of the March for Life, held the day before the anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade, stand in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, on Jan. 21.
M. Levy for TIME
Civilian volunteers receive weapons, in a nationwide campaign to recruit, register and draft men for the war against Russia, in Fastiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25.
Bendan Hoffman—The New York Times/Redux
Police officers block activists during a protest denouncing the proclamation of the new Philippine president and vice president, in front of the Commission on Human Rights, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, on May 25.
Lisa Marie David—Reuters
A member of Team USA recovers USA's Anita Alvarez, from the bottom of the pool during an incident in the women's solo free artistic swimming finals, during the Budapest 2022 World Aquatics Championships on June 22.
Oli Scarff—AFP/Getty Images
Stephen Ayres, January 6 rioter, speaks to Harry Dunn, U.S. Capitol Police officer, following testimony before the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, on July 12.
Sarah Silbiger—Reuters
A couple caresses each other during a vigil in All Souls Unitarian Church in Colorado Springs, on Nov. 20. A vigil was held after a shooting at an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub where at least five people were killed.
Rachel Woolf—The Washington Post/Getty Images
A Ukrainian soldier helps Julia Pavliuk and her daughter Emma evacuate the Kyiv suburb of Irpin, Ukraine, which Russian forces have tried to seize as part of their push to encircle the capital on March 5.
Maxim Dondyuk
Flames engulf a chair inside a burning home as the Oak Fire burns in Mariposa County, Calif., on July 23.
Noah Berger—AP
A man assists an injured woman during a protest against Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry calling for his resignation, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Oct. 10.
Richard Pierrin—AFP/Getty Images
Family members and relatives mourn as they carry the body of Rafia Nazir, a young Kashmiri woman killed in a grenade attack, during her funeral in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, on March 7.
Mukhtar Khan—AP
End-of-life doula Michelle Thornhill meets with her client, Estella Stackhouse, 101, at Stackhouse’s home in Philadelphia, on Jan. 19.
September Dawn Bottoms for TIME
Border patrol agents and members of the Texas Army National Guard light the path as asylum-seeking migrants from Central and South America wade through the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico, in Roma, Texas, on March 4.
Adrees Latif—Reuters
The dead bodies of soldiers are seen in a military vehicle on a road in the town of Bucha, close to the capital Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 1.
Serhii Nuzhnenko—AP
Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court pose for their official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, on Oct. 7.
Philip Montgomery for TIME
Lahorah, 30, with her year-old son, Safiullah, at a mobile clinic set up by UNICEF in the remote village of Alisha, in Wardak Province, Afghanistan, on June 11. The Taliban's rulers have reinstituted an emirate governed by a strict interpretation of Islamic law and issued a flood of edicts curtailing women's rights, institutionalizing patriarchal customs, restricting journalists and effectively erasing many vestiges of an American-led occupation and nation-building effort.
Kiana Hayeri—The New York Times/Redux
President Joe Biden descends from Air Force One at Fort Lauderdale International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Nov. 1.
Tom Brenner—The New York Times/Redux
Women mourn the death of their family member and conscript soldier Gasanbek Agabekov, who was killed in Ukraine the 27th of May, in Aglobi, Dagestan, Russia, on June 16. In Dagestan, family members of the deceased meet at regular intervals to grieve. An imam said that fifteen other men from Gasanbek’s area had died in the war. The republic that has seen the highest number of casualties in the war in Ukraine is also one of poorest republics in Russia.
Nanna Heitmann—Magnum Photos
Megan Keeton, 31, immediately after a cesarean-section delivery. Complications from two earlier pregnancies, one resulting in a stillbirth, the other in the birth of her daughter, Aryia, now 7, who has spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy led doctors to tell Keeton she should not become pregnant again because of the risks to her health. But just before she was going to make an appointment to get her tubes tied late last year, she found out she was pregnant for a third time. "I was asked if I wanted to have an abortion, and I said no," Keeton says.
Stephanie Sinclair
Morgan Schneider, a doctoral meteorology student at the University of Oklahoma, and her team launch a weather balloon near Hyannis, Neb. on June 6.
Erinn Springer—The New York Times/Redux
Family of Ukrainian soldier Ivan Lipskiy grieve at his casket during a military service of 5 Ukrainian soldiers in Odessa, Ukraine, on March 29. Lipskiy was killed on March 18 during a Russian airstrike that hit the 36th Ukrainian Naval Infantry Brigade killing more than 40 Ukrainian soldiers in the city of Mykolaiv.
Salwan Georges—The Washington Post/Getty Images
Home owners in Fort Myers, Fla. walk outside their homes on Sept. 29 to assess damage from Hurricane Ian and wait for help from relatives.
Christopher Morris for TIME
A woman and child peer out of the window of a bus as they leave Sievierodonetsk, Luhansk region, Ukraine, on Feb. 24.
Vadim Ghirda—AP
A Lake County police officer walks down Central Avenue in Highland Park, Ill. on July 4 after a shooter fired on the northern suburb's Fourth of July parade. At least six people were killed and at least two dozen injured.
Brian Cassella—Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
A woman gestures for help as Kenyan security forces intervene during a stampede at the entrance of the Moi International Sports Center Kasarani in Nairobi, Kenya, on Sept. 13 ahead of William Ruto's inauguration ceremony.
Tony Karumba—AFP/Getty Images
The first patient to arrive at the main children’s hospital in Kyiv after the Russian invasion was a young boy named Semyon, photographed on Feb. 28. His family’s car had come under heavy fire, killing his parents and his sister. The boy later died.
Maxim Dondyuk
School graduates dance by sandbags protecting the front of the Opera Theater for a video to be posted online, in Odesa, Ukraine, on June 15.
Laetitia Vancon—The New York Times/Redux
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