The Tower of London is a citadel on the north bank of the Thames, begun in 1066 after the Norman Conquest. Its White Tower was built by William the Conqueror around 1078 and was at first a feared symbol of oppression. Over its history it served as a royal palace, an armoury, a treasury, a menagerie, the Royal Mint and a public record office, and it houses the Crown Jewels. Monarchs once spent nights there before their coronations. Famous prisoners included the future Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh, and the phrase sent to the Tower comes from this use. Despite its reputation for torture, only seven people were executed inside before the world wars, while 112 were executed on nearby Tower Hill. Today it is a World Heritage Site and attracted nearly 2.8 million visitors in 2025.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.