In 1904 Magnus Hirschfeld, a German physician, published Berlin's Third Sex, a study of the city's lively queer subculture of bars, balls and clubs. Hirschfeld argued that homosexuality was natural, not a crime or illness, and his case combined sympathetic portraits with science. He co-founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee in 1897 to campaign against Paragraph 175, the German law criminalising sex between men, and in 1919 opened the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin. The Nazis raided the institute in May 1933 and burned its library.

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.