- May 2 Goethe visits Ettersberg (Buchenwald)
Music Premiere
May 7 Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th (Choral) Symphony, often regarded as his greatest work, premieres in Vienna
- May 10 The National Gallery in London opens to the public in its temporary home in a townhouse on Pall Mall
Historic Event
May 17 The diaries of Lord Byron are burnt by six of the poet's friends at the office of John Murray in London, sometimes described as “the greatest crime in literary history”
