Electric guitars grew out of a 1930s problem: as big bands got larger, acoustic guitars were too quiet to be heard. Early experiments in the 1910s and 1920s put telephone transmitters and carbon microphones on violins and banjos, but those picked up vibrations from the instrument's body and gave weak signals. The real breakthrough was the electromagnetic pickup, a coil wrapped around a magnet that turns string vibrations into an electrical signal that an amplifier can boost. George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacker developed it, and in 1931 Beauchamp's cast aluminium lap steel guitar, nicknamed the Frying Pan, became the first commercially sold electrically amplified stringed instrument.

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.