The Zimmerman telegraph, was a telegraph from Germany to Mexico proposing an alliance in which Germany would give the land that Mexico lost to the United States if the Mexican people would fight the United States and keep them out of the war
Yes, enslaved individuals were brought to the British North American colonies and the United States by the African slave trade before it was outlawed in 1808.
A major Renaissance novel about a man who fights imaginary enemies is Don Quixote.