Ulysses S. Grant was born in Ohio in 1822 and graduated from West Point in 1843. He served in the Mexican-American War but left the army impoverished in 1854. He rejoined when the Civil War began and rose quickly after western victories in 1862, then captured Vicksburg in 1863, giving the Union control of the Mississippi. Lincoln made him commander of all Union armies, and he forced Robert E. Lee to surrender at Appomattox in 1865. Elected president in 1868, he backed Reconstruction and prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan, but his second term was damaged by scandals and the Panic of 1873. After leaving office he became the first president to circumnavigate the globe, and he finished his memoirs while dying of throat cancer in 1885.

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.