On the night of May 31, 1921, white mobs and deputised men attacked Greenwood, the prosperous Black district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, known as Black Wall Street. The violence began after a rumour that a Black teenager had assaulted a white woman in an elevator, and it spread across the district for about twelve hours. Estimates of the dead run to as many as three hundred, and more than a thousand homes and the business district were burned.

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.