Tarrare was a French showman, soldier and spy from the 1790s whose appetite was so extreme that he was constantly hungry. Born around 1772, he was turned out of his family home as a teenager and ended up performing as a sideshow act, swallowing stones, corks and live animals. He joined the French Revolutionary Army, where even four times the standard ration failed to satisfy him, so he was studied in a series of medical experiments. General Alexandre de Beauharnais then sent him on a mission to swallow documents and recover them later, but he was captured by Prussians on his first attempt. Doctors never found a cure, and he died around 1798 after reportedly being thrown out of a hospital.

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.