The James Webb Space Telescope, a NASA–ESA–CSA collaboration, is launched from French Guiana to observe the early universe in infrared.
The World Health Organization declares the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic.
Israel signs US-brokered agreements normalising relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
The United Kingdom gives the first doses of the fully authorised Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, beginning a global vaccination campaign.
Russia launches a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, starting the largest war in Europe since the Second World War and displacing millions of people.
OpenAI releases the chatbot ChatGPT, which quickly reaches hundreds of millions of users and drives a wave of generative artificial intelligence.
The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration releases the first direct image of a black hole, at the centre of the galaxy M87.