- May 8 Richard Jago, English poet (b. 1715)
- May 18 Túpac Amaru II, Peruvian-Indian revolutionary, a descendant of the last Inca ruler Túpac Amaru, dies at 43
- May 22 Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington, Anglo-Irish composer, dies at 45
- May 27 Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist, dies at 64