The Linux 4.8.0 kernel was officially release on October 2, becoming the fifth kernel release so far in 2016. The Linux 4.7 kernel was released on July 24.
As opposed to all the other kernel releases this year (and in fact in contrast to all kernel releases since 2.6) Torvalds really wasn’t happy about this one, though the source of his displeasure didn’t become apparent until after the release.