In July 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea began dancing in a Strasbourg street and kept going for four to six days. Others copied her, and within a month the mania had seized around four hundred people, some of whom danced until they died. Officials first sent sufferers to a shrine of St Vitus, then built dance floors with musicians, believing dancing would exhaust the illness. The plan backfired, since onlookers saw the frenzy as divine punishment and joined in. Modern historians suggest ergot poisoning from contaminated rye, or mass psychogenic illness driven by stress and belief, as the most likely causes.

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.