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

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…