The word brunch was coined in Britain in 1895 by Guy Beringer, who argued in a magazine essay that Sunday should have a late meal around noon instead of the heavy early dinner. It would start with breakfast items like tea, coffee and marmalade and move on to heavier food, so that people who went out on Saturday night could sleep in. In the United States it became a luxury restaurant event. Madame Elizabeth Begue, a German immigrant, is credited with offering a long multi-course Sunday feast at her New Orleans restaurant in the late 1890s, and by the 1920s to 1950s brunch was popular among New York's upper classes.

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.