As the year comes to a close, it's time to take a look back at some of the most memorable events and images of 2016. Among the events covered in this essay (the second of a three-part photo summary of the year): the Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the U.S. Republican and Democratic national conventions, the Brexit campaign and vote in the U.K., the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, and much more. See also, the Top 25 News Photos of 2016, and the Year in Photos Part 1, and Part 3. The series comprises 120 images in all. Warning: some of the photos may contain graphic or objectionable content.
2016: The Year in Photos, May-August
-
Usain Bolt of Jamaica looks at Andre De Grasse of Canada as they compete in the Men's 100-meter Semifinals in the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 14. #
Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters -
-
A child attends the 'Children Becoming Buddhist Monks' ceremony before Buddha's birthday at a Chogye temple on May 2 in Seoul, South Korea. Children have their hair shaved and stay at the temple to learn about Buddhism for 14 days. #
Chung Sung-Jun / Getty -
Three Syrian men whose lives were changed drastically by the war, left wounded and scarred by encounters with ISIS militants. Left: 34 year-old Abo poses in Kilis, Turkey, on May 12. Abo, a fighter for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was injured by shrapnel while fighting ISIS outside of Azaz, Syria on May 9th. Abo was blinded in his left eye and suffered wounds across his body including his arms, chest, and head. A shoemaker before the war, Abo has been fighting against ISIS for the past year, his wife and children currently live in a refugee camp inside Syria at the Turkish border. When asked if he would return to Syria and continue fighting he said “Of course, I am fighting for my country, family, and my freedom. Daesh, they are not Islam. They are criminals.” Center: 31 year-old Syrian Anwar, photographed on May 12 in Kilis, Turkey. Anwar worked as an activist, media liaison, and interpreter for foreign media. On August 11, 2013, just days after working with a foreign journalist, he was taken from his house at gunpoint by a group of masked ISIS soldiers. Blindfolded and beaten, he was taken to a prison in Aleppo. He was kept there with many other prisoners for two weeks and tortured with electricity before being moved to another prison outside of Aleppo where he was kept for a further fifteen days. After being told he would be allowed to see his family, Anwar sensed something had changed and decided to attempt an escape. Since being imprisoned he had lost a lot of weight and under the cover of darkness he squeezed through the bars of his cell using a sheet to lower himself down the other side before escaping the prisons gates. “The picture of my little girl that never departed my mind and my love of freedom gave me the courage to escape,” he said. Right: 20 year-old Syrian ‘Arrow’ (a nickname) in Kilis, Turkey, on May 12. Arrow, has been fighting with the FSA for the past three and a half years and suffered head and neck injuries after being shot by an ISIL sniper outside of Azaz, Syria, on May 8. Arrow worked as an electrician before the war and says “Daesh is worse than Assad. They use Islam for cover. Without Daesh we will be free.” Arrow plans to return to Syria and continue fighting once he has fully recovered. #
Chris McGrath / Getty -
-
A police car burns during clashes while police gather to denounce the almost daily violent clashes at protests against a labor reform in Paris, France, on Wednesday, May 18. Several hundred counter demonstrators came chanting slogans like “everybody hates the police” and pushing up against officers until eventually the police deployed dispersal spray. #
Francois Mori / AP -
-
Orange County Sheriff's deputies arrest a protester near the Anaheim Convention Center on Wednesday, May 25, in Anaheim, California. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a rally at the convention center. #
Jae C. Hong / AP -
Armed men in uniform, identified by Syrian Democratic forces as U.S. special operations forces, ride in a pickup truck in the village of Fatisah, in the northern Syrian province of Raqa, on May 25. U.S.-backed Syrian fighters and Iraqi forces were pressing twin assaults against ISIS in two ground offensives against the jihadists. #
Delil Souleiman / AFP / Getty -
-
Twisted piles of wood lie against a house following heavy floods the day before on June 2, in Simbach am Inn, Germany. Flash floods from the swollen Inn river took local communities by surprise, trapping children at schools and forcing some residents to flee to their rooftops. #
Sebastian Widmann / Getty -
A man runs from the scene of a terror attack at the Ambassador Hotel, after a car bomb exploded on June 1 at a top Mogadishu hotel that houses several MPs, killing several people, and followed by a gun battle. Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab group was chased out of the capital Mogadishu in 2011 but remains a dangerous threat in both Somalia and neighboring Kenya, where it carries out frequent attacks. #
Mohamed Abdiwahab / AFP / Getty -
People hold candles during an evening memorial service for the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting, at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Florida. The shooting at Pulse Nightclub, which killed 49 people and injured 53, was the worst mass-shooting event in American history. #
Drew Angerer / Getty -
-
Protesters against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump chase a man leaving a Trump campaign rally on Thursday, June 2, in San Jose, California, A group of protesters attacked Trump supporters who were leaving the presidential candidate's rally in San Jose. A dozen or more people were punched, at least one person was pelted with an egg, and Trump hats grabbed from supporters were set on fire on the ground. #
Noah Berger / AP -
-
Smoke from wildfires burning in Angeles National Forest fills the sky behind the Los Angeles skyline on June 20. The wildfires several miles apart devoured hundreds of acres of brush on steep slopes above foothill suburbs in Southern California as an intensifying heat wave stretching from the West Coast to New Mexico blistered the region with triple-digit temperatures. #
Ringo H.W. Chiu / AP -
-
Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage reacts at the Leave.EU referendum party at Millbank Tower in central London on June 24, as results indicated that it looked likely the U.K. would vote to leave the European Union. When the final count was announced, 52 percent voted for the "Brexit," voicing their opinion that Britain should exit the EU. #
Geoff Caddick / AFP / Getty -
The head of Love Doll "Saori" in the apartment of its owner, Senji Nakajima, on June 25 in Japan. Nakajima, 61 years old, lives with his life-size 'love doll' named 'Saori' in his apartment in Tokyo. He is married with two children, and lives away from home for work. He first started his life with Saori six years ago. At first, he used to imagine as if the doll was his first girlfriend, and used it only for sexual purposes to fill the loneliness, but months later he started to find Saori actually has an original personality. "She never betrays, not after only money. I'm tired of modern rational humans. They are heartless," Nakajima says, "for me, she is more than a doll. Not just a silicon rubber. She needs much help, but still is my perfect partner who shares precious moments with me and enriches my life." #
Taro Karibe / Getty -
-
Asal Ahmed, 4, is carried by her father at the scene of a massive suicide truck bomb attack in Karada, Iraq, on July 9. Asal and her mother were badly burned as they shopped for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Iraq’s deadliest single bombing in 13 years of war turned the Baghdad district where it took place into the centerpiece in an increasingly bitter rivalry between the country’s prime minister and Iranian-backed Shiite militias eager to hold sway over the city’s most diverse and prosperous area. #
Hadi Mizban / AP -
A man protesting the shooting death of Alton Sterling is detained by law enforcement near the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 9. #
Jonathan Bachman / Reuters -
Maja, a 40-year-old elephant, extends her trunk into a bakery as a customer buys a newspaper. Maja took a stroll through the neighborhood with her minders from a nearby circus in Berlin, Germany, on July 1. #
Sean Gallup / Getty -
-
Soldiers involved in a coup attempt surrender on Bosphorus bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 16. Istanbul's bridges across the Bosphorus were closed to traffic. The unsuccessful coup attempt left more than 300 dead and led to tens of thousands of arrests and, later, mass firings of educators and other government employees during a months-long state of emergency. #
Getty -
Solar Impulse 2, the solar-powered plane piloted by Swiss pioneer Andre Borschberg, is seen during a flight over the pyramids prior to landing in Cairo, Egypt, on July 13. The 16th leg of the round-the-world-trip from Seville, in Spain, covered a distance of 3,700 kilometers and took almost 49 hours. #
Jean Revillard / Solar Impulse2 via Getty -
In this photo taken on July 19, inmates sleep on the ground of an open basketball court inside the Quezon City jail at night in Manila. There are 3,800 inmates at the jail, which was built six decades ago to house 800, and they engage in a relentless contest for space. Men take turns to sleep on the cracked cement floor of an open-air basketball court, the steps of staircases, underneath beds and hammocks made out of old blankets. #
Noel Celis / AFP / Getty -
-
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers a speech during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. An estimated 50,000 people attended, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. #
Alex Wong / Getty -
Khizr Khan, whose son, Humayun S. M. Khan was one of 14 American Muslims who died serving in the U.S. Army in the 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, offers to loan his copy of the Constitution to Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump, as he speaks while his wife, Ghazala Khan, looks on during the last night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 28. #
Mike Segar / Reuters -
-
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton hugs U.S. President Barack Obama as she arrives onstage at the end of his speech on the third night of the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 27. #
Jim Young / Reuters -
-
Bahamas' Shaunae Miller falls over the finish line to win gold ahead of United States' Allyson Felix, right, in the women's 400-meter final during the track and field competitions of the 2016 Summer Olympics at the Olympic stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 15. #
Matt Slocum / AP -
A still image taken on August 18 from a video posted on social media said to be shot in Aleppo, Syria, on August 17 shows a boy with a bloodied face sitting in an ambulance after an airstrike. The image of the boy—later identified as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh—went viral, and was denounced as a forgery by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. #
Reuters TV -
-
Congolese soldiers arrest a civilian protesting against the government's failure to stop the killings and inter-ethnic tensions in the town of Butembo, in North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo, on August 24. #
Kenny Katombe / Reuters -
Firefighters continue removing rubble near the bell tower in Amatrice, central Italy on August 30, 2016. Italy was struck by a powerful, 6.2-magnitude earthquake in the night of August 24, which killed nearly 300 people and devastated dozens of houses in the Lazio villages of Pescara del Tronto, Accumoli and Amatrice. #
Stefano Montesi / Corbis via Getty -
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.