Dashed left edge = started before May 1849 ·
Dashed right edge = ongoing beyond May 1849
Events in May 1849 6
1768 – 1849Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849)Died 22 May 1849, aged 81Anglo-Irish novelist celebrated for works such as Castle Rackrent, considered a pioneer of the regional and historical novel. She was widely admired by contemporaries including Walter Scott and Jane Austen. She died at her family home in Edgeworthstown, Ireland.
1777 – 1849Juliette Recamier (1777-1849)Died 11 May 1849, aged 71French socialite whose Paris salon was a famous gathering place for writers and politicians during and after the Napoleonic era. She was renowned for her beauty and immortalized in Jacques-Louis David's portrait of her reclining on a chaise longue. She died in Paris during a cholera epidemic.
1820 – 1849Anne Bronte (1820-1849)Died 28 May 1849, aged 29English novelist and poet, youngest of the Bronte sisters, known for the novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She died of pulmonary tuberculosis in Scarborough, where she had traveled hoping the sea air would aid her recovery.
1849 – 1944Bertha BenzThe investor who was not allowed to be oneBertha Ringer put her dowry into Carl Benz's failing workshop in 1870, while still unmarried and therefore still legally able to invest. On marrying him in 1872 she lost that standing under the law of Baden, and continued funding him anyway. She wound ignition coils, argued down the doubters, and in August 1888 took the Patent-Motorwagen and her two sons on an unauthorised hundred-kilometre drive that invented the brake lining, exposed the need for a lower gear, and turned an unsellable curiosity into a product. She was ninety-five when she died, and still driving into old age.
1849Bertha Benz born in PforzheimUnfortunately only a girl againCäcilie Bertha Ringer is born third of nine children into a prosperous carpenter's family. In the family Bible her father records her birth with the note that it is, unfortunately, only a girl again. She later said she read it as a child and decided what to do about it. Higher education is closed to women in the Grand Duchy of Baden, so she does not get any.
1849Astor Place RiotA theater rivalry turns deadly in New York CityA dispute between fans of rival actors Edwin Forrest and William Macready escalated into a riot outside the Astor Place Opera House in Manhattan. Militia called in to control the crowd opened fire, killing more than twenty people. It remains one of the deadliest civil disturbances in New York City history.