In 1908 the French doctor Ludovic O'Followell published X-ray images of women wearing corsets, the first medical imaging of corset effects. He was answering a nineteenth-century campaign that argued tight corsets harmed women's health and even proposed banning them for younger women. He made corsets from radiopaque materials so their shape would show on film, then compared healthy and extreme wearers. He concluded that a medically harmless corset could exist, but that extreme tightening, especially from childhood, could affect the ribs, liver and intestines.

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.