The secret society known as the Order of Illuminati was founded by Adam Weishaupt and Adolph Freiherr Knigge in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany.

A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla warfare insurgencies, that hide their activities and memberships but maintain a public presence.

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically, the name usually refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on 1 May 1776 in the Electorate of Bavaria. The society's stated goals were to oppose superstition, obscurantism, religious influence over public life, and abuses of state power. "The order of the day", they wrote in their general statutes, "is to put an end to the machinations of the purveyors of injustice, to control them without dominating them."

Johann Adam Weishaupt was a German philosopher, professor of civil law and later canon law, and founder of the Bavarian Illuminati.

Adolph Franz Friedrich Ludwig Freiherr Knigge was a German writer, Freemason, and a leading member of the Order of the Illuminati.

Ingolstadt is an independent city on the Danube, in Upper Bavaria, with 142,308 inhabitants. Around half a million people live in the metropolitan area. Ingolstadt is the second largest city in Upper Bavaria after Munich and the fifth largest city in Bavaria after Munich, Nuremberg, Augsburg and Regensburg. The city passed the mark of 100,000 inhabitants in 1989 and has since been one of the major cities in Germany. After Regensburg, Ingolstadt is the second largest German city on the Danube.