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Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist (October 18, 1777 – November 21, 1811) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him. A reading of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason caused Kleist to abandon the rationalism of the Enlightenment in favor of emotionalism. In this regard, Kleist was a precursor to Romanticism. He had the Romantics' predisposition toward extreme states of consciousness; his works were a precursor to those of Sigmund Freud and the unconscious.

Black Hawk (Makataimeshekiakiak) (1767 – October 3, 1838) was a leader and warrior of the Sauk Native American tribe in what are now the states of Iowa and Illinois in the central United States. During the War of 1812 he fought on the side of the British. Later he led a band of Sauk and Fox warriors against settlers in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin in the 1832 Black Hawk War in an attempt to regain his tribe's traditional village sites along the Rock River in Illinois. The Sauk defeat marked an end to armed resistance.