A land war in Europe. Skyrocketing inflation. America without Roe v. Wade. It sounds like the middle of the last century, not life in 2022, but of course it is.

It’s been a historic year, not only because it feels like we’ve been living through history, but because so much of what’s happening feels like it’s happened before. Yet somehow that hasn’t always made it easier to parse.

To help explain 2022, and perhaps what’s coming next, here are 22 stories selected by POLITICO Magazine. We take you through what’s really on Putin’s mind, the fall of Madison Cawthorn and the rise of Raphael Warnock, what it’s like to work in a mobile vasectomy clinic that serves a post-Roe America, and more.