Postcards grew out of cards sent through the post as early as the 1840s. The earliest known hand-painted picture postcard was made by the writer Theodore Hook, who mailed a caricature of post office workers to himself from Fulham in 1840, probably as a practical joke. Postal systems then began to issue official cards, starting with Austria-Hungary in 1869, and a Prussian official had proposed an open card with an address side and a message side. Printed picture cards arrived with the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and by the 1890s the postcard was a mass craze. The American golden age ran from about 1905 to 1915, when billions were mailed each year and many cards were never posted at all.

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.