Timeline Friday 5 May 1944

Events on Friday 5 May 1944 2

• 1849 – 1944 Bertha Benz The investor who was not allowed to be one Bertha 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.
• 1944 Bertha Benz dies at Ladenburg Two days later Bertha Benz dies at home in Ladenburg on 5 May 1944, two days after the honour and her birthday, at ninety-five. She had gone on driving well into old age.