A protester poses for photos next to a burning police vehicle in Los Angeles on May 30, 2020, during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)FILE - In this June 2, 2020 file photo, a protester and a police officer shake hands in the middle of a standoff at a rally in New York, calling for justice over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis on May 25. The International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, a prominent law enforcement training group, is promoting a lengthy research document riddled with falsehoods and conspiracies that urges local police to treat Black Lives Matter activists as terrorists plotting a violent revolution. The document contains misinformation and inflammatory rhetoric that could incite officers against protesters and people of color, critics said. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File)A protester carries a U.S. flag upside down as he walks past a burning building in Minneapolis on May 28, 2020, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)President Donald Trump holds a Bible as he stands outside St. John's Church across Lafayette Park from the White House in Washington on June 1, 2020, after law enforcement officers used tear gas and other riot control tactics to forcefully clear peaceful protesters from the area. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, appears at a news conference about the coronavirus at the White House in Washington on April 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island in the Bronx borough of New York on April 9, 2020. Hart Island is a strip of land in Long Island Sound that has long served as the city's potter's field. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)Mary Faye Cochran, 86, sings "You Are My Sunshine" over the phone to her son Stacey Smith through a window for a Mother's Day celebration at Provident Village at Creekside senior living on Sunday, May 10, 2020, in Smyrna, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)Martina Papponetti, 25, a nurse at the Humanitas Gavazzeni Hospital in Bergamo, Italy, poses for a portrait at the end of her shift on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic on March 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)FILE - In this July 31, 2020, file photo, Romelia Navarro, 64, weeps while hugging her husband, Antonio, in his final moments in a COVID-19 unit at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Calif. In November 2020, California is reaching an unwelcome coronavirus record: its 1 millionth positive test. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)Lanes are empty on the 110 Arroyo Seco Parkway that leads to downtown Los Angeles on April 26, 2020, as California remains on lockdown to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)FILE - In this April 15, 2020 file photo, protesters carry rifles near the steps of the Michigan State Capitol building in Lansing, Mich. A plot to kidnap Michigans governor has put a focus on the security of governors who have faced protests and threats over their handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The threats have come from people who oppose business closures and restrictions on social gatherings. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya File)People stand in their balconies during a nationwide confinement to counter the coronavirus in Barcelona, Spain on March 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)President Donald Trump holds a press conference about the coronavirus at the White House in Washington on April 13, 2020. At left is Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)Residents of the Oakmont Gardens senior home evacuate on a bus as the Shady Fire approaches in Santa Rosa Calif., Monday, Sept. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2020, file image taken with a slow shutter speed, embers light up a hillside behind the Bidwell Bar Bridge as the Bear Fire burns in Oroville, Calif. Deadly wildfires in California have burned more than 4 million acres (6,250 square miles) this year more than double the previous record for the most land burned in a single year in the state. California fire officials said the state hit the astonishing milestone Sunday, Oct. 4, 2020 with about two months remaining in the fire season. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)FILE - In this Aug. 20, 2020, file photo, Thomas Henney, left, and Charles Chavira watch a plume spread over Healdsburg, Calif., as the LNU Lightning Complex fires burn. Two unusual weather phenomena combined to create some of the most destructive wildfires the West Coast states have seen in modern times. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)President Donald Trump smiles during a visit to Mount Rushmore National Memorial near Keystone, S.D., on Friday, July 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)President-elect Joe Biden gestures to the crowd after he spoke Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)Supporters of President Donald Trump protest the Nevada vote in front of the Clark County Election Department, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters, Thursday Nov. 19, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)Walter Carter, 74, of Woodbridge, Va., who attended the original March on Washington, attends 2020's March on Washington, Friday Aug. 28, 2020, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, on the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. "This March is a celebration anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington," says Carter, "and the issues are very similar even though so much time has passed." (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)Voters mark their ballots at First Presbyterian Church on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, in Stamford, Conn. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)Sneakers and a Los Angeles Lakers jersey with the number 8 worn by NBA star Kobe Bryant hang at a memorial for Bryant in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, 2020, a week after he was killed in a helicopter crash. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)FILE - In this Aug. 4, 2020 file photo, Hoda Kinno, 11, is evacuated by her uncle Mustafa, in the aftermath of a massive explosion at the port in Beirut, Lebanon. The Kinno family from Syria's Aleppo region was devastated in the wake of the explosion -- Hoda suffered a broken neck and other injuries and her sister Sidra, 15, died in the explosion. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)Black smoke rises from a fire at warehouses at the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 10. 2020. A huge fire broke out Thursday at the Port of Beirut, triggering panic among residents traumatized by last month's massive explosion that killed and injured thousands of people. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)Women clerics wearing protective clothing and "chador," a head-to-toe garment, arrive at a cemetery to prepare the body of a person who died from COVID-19 for a funeral, in Ghaemshahr, Iran, on April 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)Migrants flee from the second fire in two days at the overcrowded Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesbos, Greece, on Sept. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)One-year-old Yazan has his oxygen mask removed after heart surgery at the Tajoura National Heart Center in Tripoli, Libya, on Feb. 27, 2020. Yazan's perilous trek from his small desert hometown culminated in a five-hour surgery. He is one of 1,000 children treated by Dr. William Novick's group since it first came to Libya after the 2011 uprising. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)A homeless person sits in a wheelchair during rainy weather on Sunset Blvd. in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles on April 6, 2020. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an emergency order in mid-March to spend $150 million to help the homeless during the pandemic. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)Two women kiss under an old Belarusian national flag as opposition supporters gather near the Independence Palace in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Nadia Buzhan)Swarms of desert locusts fly into the air from crops in Katitika village in Kenya's Kitui county on Jan. 24, 2020. In the worst outbreak in a quarter-century, hundreds of millions of the insects swarmed into Kenya from Somalia and Ethiopia, destroying farmland and threatening an already vulnerable region. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)Rescue workers and local residents search for survivors in the wreckage of a plane that crashed with nearly 100 people onboard in a residential area of Karachi, Pakistan, on May 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein leaves court in New York on Jan. 10, 2020, after attending jury selection for his sexual assault trial. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)Protesters storm the San Francisco de Borja church, which belongs to the Carabineros, Chile's national police force, in Santiago, Chile, on Oct. 18, 2020, the first anniversary of the start of anti-government mass protests over inequality. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)Demonstrators protest, Thursday, June 4, 2020, near the White House in Washington, over the death of George Floyd, a black man who was in police custody in Minneapolis. Floyd died after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)People demonstrate outside a burning Arby's fast food restaurant on May 29, 2020, in Minneapolis during a protest over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)A protester in an Elmo mask dances as a street fire burns on May 30, 2020, during a protest in Philadelphia over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed while in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)Motorists are ordered to the ground from their vehicle by police on May 31, 2020, during a protest in Minneapolis over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)Yasmine Protho, 18, wears a photo of herself and "Class of 2020" on her protective mask amid the COVID-19 virus outbreak as she graduates with only nine other classmates and limited family attending at Chattahoochee County High School in Cusseta, Ga., on May 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)A child wearing a mask to protect against the coronavirus rests on the bank of the Yangtze River in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province on April 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)Francisco Espaa, 60, spends time in front of the beach near the "Hospital del Mar" in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. A hospital in Barcelona is studying how short trips to the beach may help COVID-19 patients recover from long and traumatic intensive hospital care. The study is part of a program to humanize ICUs. Since re-starting it in early June, the researchers have anecdotally noticed that even ten minutes in front of the blue sea waters can improve a patients emotional attitude. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)Wearing protective suits against infection, funeral home workers remove the body of an elderly person who died of COVID-19 at a nursing home while another resident sleeps in his bed in Barcelona, Spain Thursday Nov. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)Musicians rehears at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, on June 22, 2020. When the doors opened for the performance of Puccini's "Crisantemi" by the UceLi Quartet, the 2,292 seats of the auditorium were occupied by plants and the performance was broadcast live online. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)With the seats at Dodger Stadium empty, Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Julio Urias throws to a San Francisco Giants batter during the third inning of a baseball game on July 26, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)President Donald Trump, returning from a campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., walks across the South Lawn of the White House in Washington after stepping off the Marine One helicopter, early Sunday, June 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)Jill Biden moves her husband, Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, back from members of the media as he speaks outside his campaign plane in New Castle, Del., on Oct. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)Villagers prepare placards featuring U.S. Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris in Painganadu, a neighboring village of Thulasendrapuram, south of Chennai, in Tamil Nadu state, India, Nov. 6, 2020. The lush green village of Thulasendrapuram is the hometown of Harris’ maternal grandfather, who migrated from here decades ago. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)An election worker examines ballots as vote counting in the general election continues at State Farm Arena on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2020, file photo President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Capital Region International Airport in Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)FILE - In this Sept. 13, 2020, file photo, Shayanne Summers holds her dog Toph while wrapped in a blanket after several days of staying in a tent at an evacuation center at the Milwaukie-Portland Elks Lodge in Oak Grove, Ore. "It's nice enough here you could almost think of this as camping and forget everything else, almost," said Summers about staying at the center after evacuating from near Molalla, Oregon which was threatened by the Riverside Fire. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)Bill Nichols, 84, works to save his home as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through Vacaville, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020. Nichols has lived in the home for 77 years. Fire crews across the region scrambled to contain dozens of wildfires sparked by lightning strikes as a statewide heat wave continues. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden smiles as he puts on his face mask after speaking to media in Wilmington, Del., on Sept. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)FILE - In this Aug. 20, 2020, file photo supporters cheer from their cars as Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden are seen on a huge monitor as fireworks light up the night sky on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention outside of the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del. If Joe Biden wins the election, Jill has vowed his administration will make listening to teachers' concerns a priority. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, left, wears a mask for protection against the coronavirus, along with members of security, as he rides the Senate Subway between meetings on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 21, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Copyright 2020 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
A protester poses for photos next to a burning police vehicle in Los Angeles on May 30, 2020, during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in Minneapolis after a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
The sudden death of a beloved NBA legend, followed by the firsts of a global pandemic that would eventually ravage everyday life as we knew it. A reckoning over racial injustice after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others, prompting protesters to rail against the system. Wildfires in the American West. A tumultuous election year between rivals President Donald Trump and now-President-elect Joe Biden.
The year 2020 was one of anger, loss, conflict and, quite simply, distress.
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Photographs from the Associated Press captured the harrowing scenes of what Americans and people all over the world witnessed this year. The images in the gallery above are just a sample of the AP’s “2020-The Year in Pictures” special.
And perhaps the most appropriate image of 2020? It was captured during the waves of protests and riots in the aftermath of Floyd’s death. A protester strides past a burning building in Minneapolis; in his hands, he holds the American flag.
The flag is upside down -- the international signal of distress.
Rebecca Salinas is the Digital Executive Producer at KSAT 12 News. A San Antonio native, Rebecca is an award-winning journalist who joined KSAT in 2019.
