On May 28, 2016, one of the most widely remembered events was the killing of Harambe, a western lowland gorilla, at the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio, after a three‑year‑old boy climbed into his enclosure. The incident sparked a huge global debate about zoo safety, parental responsibility, and animal welfare, and quickly turned into a lasting internet meme and cultural reference point.

Key news events that day

  • Harambe was shot by zoo staff after the child fell into the gorilla enclosure, with officials saying they were protecting the boy’s life.
  • Armed conflicts were ongoing: Turkey reported killing over 100 ISIL militants with artillery and U.S. airstrikes after rocket attacks from Syria, and the Niger Delta Avengers attacked oil and gas pipelines belonging to Shell and Agip in Nigeria.
  • The U.S. military tightened rules on off‑base alcohol consumption in Okinawa following the arrest of a former Marine suspected in a murder case.
  • Russian president Vladimir Putin publicly warned Romania and Poland against hosting elements of the U.S. missile defense system, framing it as a security threat to Russia.

Politics and public life

  • U.S. politics were deep in the 2016 presidential campaign: news digests from that weekend highlighted arrests at a Donald Trump rally in San Diego, ongoing questions around his management style, and his dominance in the Republican primary vote count.
  • Trump was actively tweeting about his rallies, media coverage, and U.S. defense treaties, reflecting how central social media already was to American political discourse.

Why people still ask “what happened May 28 2016?”

For many people online, “what happened May 28 2016” is shorthand for remembering Harambe’s death and the huge reaction around it, from serious ethical arguments to years of memes and callbacks in forums and polls about “the most tragic event of 2016.” The date also sits in a year that many internet communities remember as unusually intense, with major terror attacks and political upheavals, which helps explain why that single day and story stuck so strongly in collective memory.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.