Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 short by the American cartoonist Winsor McCay. It was not the first animated film, but it was the first cartoon to feature a character with a real personality, rather than the trick-film shapes of earlier animators such as Blackton and Cohl. McCay drew it using keyframe animation, the method that became the basis of later animated films. Gertie's lively, sometimes mischievous behaviour made audiences respond to her as a character. The film is preserved in the US National Film Registry, and in 1994 animators and cartoon historians ranked it sixth among the 50 greatest cartoons.

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.