Robert Falcon Scott was a British naval officer who led two Antarctic expeditions, the Discovery Expedition of 1901 to 1904 and the Terra Nova Expedition of 1910 to 1913. On the first, he marched to latitude 82 degrees south and helped discover the Antarctic Plateau, where the South Pole lies. On the second, a five-man party reached the Pole on 17 January 1912, less than five weeks after Roald Amundsen's team. On the return journey, a planned meeting with supporting dog teams failed, and Scott and his companions died about 162 miles from their base camp. When their bodies were found, they carried the first Antarctic fossils ever discovered, from the Glossopteris tree, which showed that the continent was once forested and joined to other landmasses. Scott became a national hero, but later reassessment of his decisions and his orders to the dog teams has changed how historians judge him.

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.