Bubble wrap was invented in 1957 by the engineers Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes in Hawthorne, New Jersey. They sealed two shower curtains together, trapping air in bubbles, and first tried to sell the material as wallpaper. That failed, so they sold it as greenhouse insulation. The packaging use came only in 1961, when it was found to protect fragile goods during shipping. Its first big packaging customer was IBM, which used it to protect the IBM 1401 computer in transit. The company that owned the brand, Sealed Air, was founded by the two inventors.

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.