Safety glass began in 1903, when French chemist Édouard Bénédictus dropped a glass flask and noticed it did not shatter like ordinary glass. He refined the idea into laminated glass made of two layers of glass bonded with a thin layer of cellulose nitrate between them. The layer holds fragments together when the glass breaks. He named his invention triplex, patented it in 1909, and it was later mass-produced for car windscreens and other uses. The principle is still used in windscreens today.

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.