William Petty (1737-1805)
May 2 2nd Earl of Shelburne, Prime Minister of Great Britain (1782-83), born in Dublin, Kingdom of Ireland
- May 3 Friedrich Schwindl, Dutch composer, born in Amsterdam (d. 1786)
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794)
May 8 English historian (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), born in Putney, England