Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865, a day after being shot in a Washington theater, and an autopsy was performed in the White House that day. Army surgeons Joseph Woodward and Edward Curtis conducted it, with Surgeon General Joseph Barnes and family physician Robert King Stone present. Woodward's report describes a single bullet that entered behind the left side of the skull, passed through the brain, and lodged near the base of the brain's front structures. Curtis recalled the bullet falling into a basin as the brain was lifted out, a small black mass that changed the course of the nation. The bullet and bone fragments were sealed in an envelope and handed to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The autopsy was one of the earliest detailed records of a presidential gunshot wound.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.