Khalid ibn al-Walid was one of the most important military commanders of the early Islamic era. He led the campaigns against rebel Arab tribes after Muhammad's death in 632 and 633, then fought in Sasanian Iraq. Reassigned to Syria, he crossed a long waterless stretch of desert to surprise the Byzantines, and he won major victories at Ajnadayn, Damascus and Yarmouk that brought most of Syria under Muslim control. Caliph Umar later removed him from high command despite these successes. Historians still debate his reputation, which is honoured in Sunni tradition and viewed more critically in Shia tradition.

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.