Astor Place Riot

Date: May 10, 1849 • Location: East Village, United States

This milestone marked the outbreak and beginning of this historic period, which spanned 1849.

A personal dispute between actors Edwin Forrest and William Macready in New York City devolved into a riot that left at least 22 dead and more than 120 injured.

Edwin Forrest was a nineteenth-century American Shakespearean actor. His feud with the British actor William Macready was the cause of the deadly Astor Place Riot of 1849.