In 1973 Jan-Erik Olsson took four bank employees hostage in Stockholm and held them for six days, threatening them with dynamite. When they were freed, some hostages refused to testify against him and even helped pay for his defence, seeming to see their captor as a protector against the police. Swedish psychiatrists named this 'Stockholm Syndrome'. The idea was later applied to other captivity cases, including that of the American heiress Patricia Hearst, kidnapped in 1974 by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Her 1976 trial turned on whether she was a willing rebel or a victim of coercion. Psychologists who had studied Korean War prisoners argued she showed the same dependency, debility and dread. The concept grew out of Sandor Ferenczi's 1930s idea of 'identification with the aggressor', and its meaning remains disputed.

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.