In May 1796, the Gloucestershire doctor Edward Jenner took fluid from a cowpox blister on a milkmaid's hand, Sarah Nelmes, and scratched it into the arm of eight-year-old James Phipps. Phipps caught a mild cowpox infection, and when Jenner later exposed him to smallpox, he did not get sick. Earlier practice, called variolation, deliberately infected people with smallpox to protect them, but it could be dangerous. Jenner's controlled trials were described in his 1798 publication, and he spent years teaching others to vaccinate. He opened a free vaccination clinic in his garden, and he would not patent his method.

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.