On September 6, 1901, President William McKinley was shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He was greeting the public in a reception line at the Temple of Music when Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist who had lost his job in the economic panic of 1893, fired two shots at him. One bullet grazed him, but the other lodged in his abdomen and was never found. McKinley seemed to be recovering, but his wounds turned gangrenous and he died on September 14. Czolgosz was convicted of murder and executed in the electric chair that October. McKinley had enjoyed meeting people and resisted heavy security, and his secretary had twice tried to remove the visit from the schedule out of fear of an attack. He was the third US president assassinated, after Lincoln and Garfield. Congress later gave the Secret Service formal responsibility for protecting the president.

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.