Stick candy was being judged at American exhibitions by 1837, and a straight peppermint stick with coloured stripes appeared in a confectioners' recipe book in 1844. The earliest documented 'candy cane' is in an 1866 short story, though it gives no colour or flavour. The popular story says a Cologne choirmaster asked a candy maker in 1670 to bend sugar sticks into hooks to keep children quiet during church, with white standing for the sinless life of Jesus. Historians consider this likely apocryphal, since references to it do not appear before the mid-20th century. Candy canes were hand-made until Robert McCormack began producing them in Georgia in 1919, and Gregory Keller patented an automated machine in 1957.

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.