On 27 August 1979 Lord Mountbatten, a retired British statesman and cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, was killed when a bomb exploded on his boat, Shadow V, off Mullaghmore in Ireland. The Provisional IRA had planned the attack for months, and a bomb team including Thomas McMahon hid around 50 pounds of gelignite on the boat the night before. Two suspects were arrested in a routine stop about 80 miles away, but the device was detonated less than two hours later, killing Mountbatten, his grandson, another boy and an elderly passenger. Later the same day the IRA killed eighteen British soldiers in a separate ambush. Forensic evidence linked McMahon to the bomb through paint flakes and sand from the scene, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. The attack led Margaret Thatcher to give the intelligence services a more active role in Northern Ireland, and US authorities began targeting IRA arms smuggling more aggressively.

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.