The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg tried leading Nazi figures for crimes after the Second World War, and it convicted 19 of the 22 individual defendants, with 12 sentenced to death. Its charter defined three categories: war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, the last two not previously codified. It rejected the defence that following orders excused an individual from responsibility. The court also used the term genocide, which the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin had coined less than two years earlier. Yet the trials covered only the European Axis, leaving Allied atrocities and Japanese American incarceration unexamined. Hannah Arendt felt the verdicts could not fully reach a guilt that went beyond crime.

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.