The Linotype, invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler and first tested at the New-York Tribune in 1886, let an operator type on a keyboard and cast a whole line of type as a single solid metal slug. Each key released a brass mould called a matrix from a magazine at the top of the machine, and once a line was complete it was poured in hot metal. The matrices were then returned to their places by notches the machine could read. Before this, typesetters had placed individual letters by hand, a slow step since Gutenberg. Newspapers boasted about their machines and called them the century's most marvellous time-saver, and linotypes dominated composing rooms for about a century. Their keyboard's first two columns spell etaoin shrdlu, a signal printers typed to flag a typo. The New York Times retired its last linotypes in 1978.

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.