<P> The Summer Olympic Games (French: Jeux olympiques d'été) or the Games of the Olympiad, first held in 1896, is an international multi-sport event that is hosted by a different city every four years . The most recent Olympics were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil . The International Olympic Committee (IOC) organises the games and oversees the host city's preparations . In each Olympic event, gold medals are awarded for first place, silver medals are awarded for second place, and bronze medals are awarded for third place; this tradition began in 1904 . The Winter Olympic Games were created due to the success of the Summer Olympics . </P> <P> The Olympics have increased in scope from a 42 - event competition with fewer than 250 male competitors from 14 nations in 1896 to 306 events with 11,238 competitors (6,179 men, 5,059 women) from 206 nations in 2016 . </P> <P> The Summer Olympics has been hosted on five continents by a total of nineteen different countries . The United States has hosted the Games more times than any other nation (in 1904, 1932, 1984 and 1996). The Games have also been held three times in Great Britain (in 1908, 1948 and 2012); twice each in Greece (1896, 2004), France (1900, 1924), Germany (1936, 1972) and Australia (1956, 2000); and once each in Sweden (1912), Belgium (1920), Netherlands (1928), Finland (1952), Italy (1960), Japan (1964), Mexico (1968), Canada (1976), Soviet Union (1980), South Korea (1988), Spain (1992), China (2008) and Brazil (2016). </P> <P> The IOC has selected Tokyo, Japan, to host the next Summer Olympic Games in 2020 . This will make Tokyo the first city outside the Western world to have hosted the Summer Olympics more than once . Paris has been selected by the IOC to host the Games in 2024, exactly one hundred years after the last time it hosted the Games in 1924 . Paris will be the second city ever to have hosted three Summer Olympics (after London). The IOC has also selected Los Angeles to host its third Summer Games in 2028 . </P>

When was the last time us hosted summer olympics