The Ajanta Caves are 30 rock-cut Buddhist monuments in Maharashtra, India, carved into a curved cliff above a river gorge, mostly between the 2nd century BCE and about 480 CE. They include monasteries and prayer halls, carved sculptures, and some of the finest surviving ancient Indian wall paintings, which show scenes from the Buddha's past lives and use gesture and pose to express emotion. The caves were used as monsoon retreats for monks and as a resting place for merchants and pilgrims. After centuries of disuse and jungle growth, they were brought back to attention in 1819, when a British cavalry officer hunting tigers was led to the entrance. Scholars still debate when the second phase of carving was finished, with dates ranging from the 5th to the 7th century.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.