The first in the Middle East, the first in a Muslim or Arab country, the first held in the winter, the first in which a team from Africa (Morocco) reached the top four: many crowns of firsts were associated with the World Cup that ended on December 18 in Qatar.
It was a football celebration full of sports dramas, the Argentina team that won in the stands even before winning the trophy itself, and one Leo Messi - who removed the World Cup curse from himself and officially joined Maradona in the football pantheon.
But this World Cup will also be remembered as one of the most scandalous (alongside Italy 1934, Argentina 1978 and Russia 2018) because of Qatar's treatment of foreign workers, its approach to human rights - which caused it to be boycotted by many European fans - and the suspicions of corruption that accompanied the hosting win.
Doha did everything it could to whiten its image, but the impression that money buys everything and allows everything was reinforced during the trophy ceremony: the emir of Qatar dressed Messi in the traditional bisht - and rudely interfered with Argentina's national celebration.
The luck is that the "Malabish" operation was preceded by one of the biggest finals in the history of the game
Football World Cup, photo: AP
Peak seasons
2022 was a year of unusual weather events.
How many exceptions?
Europe experienced its hottest summer in 500 years and suffered huge fires;
A heat record - 40.3 degrees - was set in Great Britain;
China and Japan experienced the worst heat waves since 1873 and 1875, respectively;
India experienced its hottest March in 122 years;
A drought unprecedented in several decades in the Horn of Africa caused starvation among 50 million people;
Whereas in Pakistan, it rained ten times more than the average, which caused a third of the country's territory to flood.
These days an arctic storm is lowering the temperatures in North America to unprecedented lows.
In the good news: the US allocated a record amount of 370 billion dollars to reduce pollution, the scope of clean energy in the world increased by 8%, and sales of electric vehicles also jumped by 62% in the first half of the year
A year of unusual weather, photo: AP
Queen of the World
For quite a few world-renowned people, 2022 will be recorded in the encyclopedias as the year of their death: Sidney Poitier, the first African-American to win an Oscar for best actor;
former Secretary of State Madeline Albright;
The leader of the last USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev; but it seems that the death of Elizabeth II stood out above all. Her reign began when telephones and refrigerators were just beginning to become common property, and ended when the image of the bear Padiganton was photographed drinking tea with her in the palace.
In her 70 years and 214 days of reign, she saw the British Empire disappear, the Cold War begin and end, and Britain join and leave the European Union.
Above all, Elizabeth was a symbol of an entire era, a stable axis in a changing world.
She died at the age of 96, and her son Charles Meade became king under her.
The funeral of the year, photo: Reuters
the freedom movement
Iran has experienced a series of protests over the past 12 years, but none of them have compared to the one that began in mid-September - not in terms of geographic scope, not in the level of involvement of all sectors, not in the prominence of women, and not in the depth of the demands.
And the equally impressive part is that the protest continues even these days, despite the brutality of the authorities and the executions of protesters.
The protest began after the killing of Mehsa Amini - a young Kurdish woman (23) who was beaten to death after not wearing the hijab as required.
According to the Iranian human rights organization HRANA, so far 507 people have been killed in the protests, including 69 minors.
More than 18.5 thousand people were arrested.
In the photo: she marched to the cemetery where Amini was buried on the 40th anniversary of her death
A year of crying out for freedom in Iran, photo: AFP
The war that changes the world
On February 24, millions in Ukraine woke up to the sound of alarms and the sounds of explosions - and what few believed could happen became a reality, which is still with us: a total war on European soil, which affects the entire world and will affect it for many years to come.
Russia hoped to collapse Ukraine within a few days, and the assessments in the West did not give Kiev a chance to survive either.
But to the astonishment of the whole world, the Ukrainians not only survived - but stopped the Russians, and since September have also carried out counter-attacks and liberated about half of the territories occupied by the Russian army since the invasion.
In the photographs: the remains of a Russian armored column in Bucha;
A resident of Borudyanka carries her cat among the ruins;
The Ukrainian army fires at Russian positions.
In the supplement "Shishbat" this Friday you can read how the war changed the world
The war in Ukraine, photo: GettyImages
The whole world
8,000,000,000 - this is the symbolic threshold crossed this year by the world's population.
The next round billion will be added in 15 years, and the announcement of the tenth billion is expected only in 2080, when the world's population will stabilize and begin to decrease.
An exception to these trends is Africa: the continent's population is growing at record speed, and according to forecasts will double to 2.5 billion as early as 2050, and in 2100 it will probably reach 4 billion - that is, 40% of humanity will live on the black continent.
The problem is that the demographic growth is happening with too little planning in African cities, which attract the rural people.
According to the United Nations, of the 30 fastest growing cities, 21 are in Africa (one of them is Lagos, Nigeria; in the photo: one of the markets in the city). International organizations are increasingly warning that the population explosion in Africa is a recipe for humanitarian disasters, which will not be limited to the continent itself
Population explosion on the way?, Photo: Reuters
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