In Memoriam: Remembering actors, singers, artists, cultural icons we lost in 2022

Queen Elizabeth II arrives for a state banquet in her honor at Schloss Bellevue Palace during a visit to Berlin, Germany, in 2015. The British monarch’s passing in September “was arguably the most high-profile death this year,” according to The Associated Press. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

One would have to go back hundreds of years to find a monarch who reigned longer than Queen Elizabeth II.

In her 70 years on the throne, she helped modernize the monarchy across decades of enormous social change, royal marriages and births, and family scandals. For most Britons, she was the only monarch they had ever known.