Sunday · September 27, 2026
Get the app
Edited daily
American history, reported as it happened
Made for the 250th
The events of May 10 · Read the full edition → · More from May 10 →
18491776 Club

Soldiers fire into the crowd outside the Astor Opera House; at least 22 are dead

Ten thousand filled the streets to stop Macready from finishing Macbeth. He finished. The militia did not wait long before shooting.

When William Charles Macready walked onto the Astor Opera House stage on the night of May 10, 1849, to play Macbeth, ten thousand people filled the surrounding streets of Manhattan — most of them there to make sure he couldn't finish. The riot that followed left between 22 and 31 dead, more than 120 injured, and the soldiers who fired into the crowd did so in the name of order, capital, and an English actor. Its ostensible cause was a feud between two Shakespearean actors. Its real cause was everything else…

1776 Club

This story is held for members.

Members read every story of the day — and tomorrow's, and the next.

Join the 1776 Club
$17.76 your first year · then $39.99/yr · cancel anytime
More from May 10
1775

Allen and Arnold take Ticonderoga; not a shot is fired

83 Green Mountain Boys cross Lake Champlain before dawn and walk out with a British fort's entire stockpile of heavy artillery.
1775

Twelve colonies convene in Philadelphia; no army, no treasury, a war already begun

Delegates gather at the Pennsylvania State House three weeks after Lexington and Concord, with no authority from the Crown and no clear path forward.
1946

A V-2 rises over White Sands; America fires a German rocket on its own soil for the first time

The missile that killed an estimated 9,000 civilians in London and Antwerp flies without a warhead, guided by manuals translated from German, as its builders work nearby under Operation Paperclip.
17731776 Club
Lord North's bill rescues the East India Company's eighteen million pounds of unsold stock, but colonists see the bargain price as bait to make them accept Parliament's right to tax.
Read this as a member →
Read the full May 10 edition →Everything that happened on May 10 →
More from Expansion & Antebellum
1858

Minnesota enters the Union as the 32nd state; the Dakota name, the French motto, the New England soul

Nine years after Ramsey stepped off a riverboat to govern 5,000 settlers, the eastern half of the old territory takes its place on the map.
1846

Congress declares war on Mexico; Polk tells the nation its blood was shed on its own soil

The vote formalizes three weeks of open conflict rooted in a disputed border, the annexation of Texas, and a decade of unresolved claims between two nations.
1854

Pierce signs the Kansas-Nebraska Act; the Missouri Compromise's thirty-four-year line is gone

Douglas's "popular sovereignty" doctrine now lets settlers in both territories vote on slavery themselves, erasing the 36°30' ban that has held since 1820.
1846

Thirty-three armed settlers seize Sonoma before dawn; California declares itself a republic

General Vallejo is taken prisoner in his own home, 170 government horses are seized, and a hand-sewn bear flag now flies over the barracks.
The Daily Record · free by email

Tomorrow's edition in your inbox — one featured story, one quote, and today's flag status. Free, every morning.

The full experience

Read every story, narrated, in the app.

Take this story with you.

The complete daily edition, the deep-cut narration, and a library that's yours — the 1776 Club lives in the app.

Your membership comes with you — every event, narrated, with flag alerts, CarPlay, and your saved library.

Download on the App Store