Harry R. Truman was a businessman, bootlegger and prospector who owned and looked after Mount St. Helens Lodge at Spirit Lake, near the base of the Washington volcano. After the mountain began to stir in March 1980, he became a folk hero in the weeks before its May eruption by refusing repeated evacuation orders. He thought the danger had been exaggerated by what he called those goddamn geologists. On May 18, 1980, a pyroclastic flow from the eruption overtook his lodge and buried the site under about 46 metres of volcanic debris, killing him. Scientists had warned of a major eruption, and the event was the deadliest and most economically destructive in US volcanic history. Truman's story became one of the most vivid human accounts of that disaster.

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.