Year 1801 (MDCCCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. It was also the first year of the 19th century.

Jan Ladislav Dussek (baptized Václav Jan Dusík, his surname was written also Duschek or Düssek; February 12, 1760 in Čáslav – March 20, 1812 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye) was a Czech composer and pianist. He was an important representative of Czech music abroad in the second half of 18th century and the beginning of 19th century. In some of his piano writing, Dussek anticipated features of musical Romanticism.

Dussek was one of the first piano virtuosos to travel widely throughout Europe. He performed at courts and concert venues from London to Saint Petersburg and Milan, and was celebrated for his technical prowess. During a nearly ten-year stay in London, he was instrumental in extending the size of the pianoforte, and was the recipient of one of John Broadwood's first 6-foot (1.8-meter) pianos.

Neither his playing style nor his compositions, however, had any notable lasting impact. While it has been suggested that Franz Liszt was a successor to Dussek in the realm of piano virtuosity, much, if not all, of Liszt's performance and composition was done without any specific knowledge of Dussek. While his music continued to be somewhat popular in 19th-century Great Britain, it is now virtually unknown.

Johann Gottlieb Naumann (17 April 1741, Blasewitz – 23 October 1801, Dresden) was a German composer, conductor, and Kapellmeister.

Johann Gottlieb Naumann received his musical training from the teachers at his town school, where he was instructed in piano and organ. Later, he studied at the Kreuzschule in Dresden and was a member of the Dresden Kreuzchor. In Dresden he was taught by the organist and cantor of the Kreuzschule, Gottfried August Homilius, a student of Bach. In May 1757, he traveled to Italy with the Swedish violinist Anders Wesström. The composer Giuseppe Tartini encountered Naumann in 1762 and took an interest in his work. Later that year, he made his debut as an opera composer in Venice with Il tesoro insidiato. Following his successful 1764 production of Li creduti spiriti, he was engaged as the second church composer at the Dresden court, on the composer Johann Adolf Hasse's recommendation.

The chord sequence which became known as the Dresden amen was composed by Naumann for use in the Court Church in Dresden. Such was its popularity that it spread to other churches in Saxony, both Catholic and Lutheran. It was also utilised by later composers, including Felix Mendelssohn (in his Reformation Symphony) and Richard Wagner (in his opera Parsifal).

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (May 19, 1762 – January 27, 1814; German pronunciation: [ˈjoːhan ˈɡɔtliːp ˈfɪçtə]) was a German philosopher. He was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant. Fichte is often perceived as a figure whose philosophy forms a bridge between the ideas of Kant and those of the German Idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Recently, philosophers and scholars have begun to appreciate Fichte as an important philosopher in his own right due to his original insights into the nature of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Like Descartes and Kant before him, he was motivated by the problem of subjectivity and consciousness. Fichte also wrote works of political philosophy and is considered one of the fathers of German nationalism.

Fichte was born in Rammenau, Upper Lusatia. The son of a ribbon weaver, he came of peasant stock which had lived in the region for many generations. The family was noted in the neighborhood for its probity and piety. Christian Fichte, Johann Gottlieb's father, married somewhat above his station. It has been suggested that a certain impatience which Fichte himself displayed throughout his life was an inheritance from his mother.

Nathaniel "Nat" Turner (October 2, 1800 – November 11, 1831) was an American slave who led a slave rebellion in Virginia on August 21, 1831 that resulted in 60 white deaths and at least 100 black deaths, the largest number of fatalities to occur in one uprising prior to the American Civil War in the southern United States. He gathered supporters in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner was convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged. In the aftermath, the state executed 56 blacks accused of being part of Turner's slave rebellion. Two hundred blacks were also beaten and killed by white militias and mobs reacting with violence. Across Virginia and other southern states, state legislators passed new laws prohibiting education of slaves and free blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for free blacks, and requiring white ministers to be present at black worship services.

At birth, Turner's owner recorded only his given name, Nat, although he may have had a last name within the slave community. In accordance with common practice, the whites referred to him by the last name of his owner, Benjamin Turner. This practice was continued by historians. Turner knew little about the background of his father, who was believed to have escaped from slavery when Turner was a young boy. Turner remained close to his paternal grandmother, Old Bridget, who was also enslaved by Benjamin Turner. Turner's maternal grandmother was one of the Coromantee from present day Ghana, a group known for slave revolts. She was captured in Africa at thirteen years of age and shipped to America.