(Source: Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash )
Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes Night remembers the failed plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament with King James I inside in 1605. Guy Fawkes was arrested guarding the 36 barrels of gunpowder after one of his fellow conspirators sent an anonymous letter to a member of the House of Lords warning him to not attend Parliament that day. Lord Monteagle, thinking the letter was a bit suspect informed the authorities and the plot was foiled.
(Source: https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/remember-remember-fifth-november)
But did you know the British tradition of Bonfire Night started as a law.
The Observance of 5th of November Act 1605 made it mandatory to hold services celebrating the foiled plot and remained until 1859 but by then the tradition had stuck.
(Source: https://library.missouri.edu/news/special-collections/remember-remember-the-fifth-of-november)
Here are some other Bonfire Night history you might not know...
The only place that refused to honour the Act was St Peters School in York out of respect as Guy Fawkes had been a former pupil.
The term bonfire comes from the medieval 'bone fire' where bonfires were built to burn bones.
(Source: http://theshakespeareblog.com/2018/03/fireworks-for-queen-elizabeth/)
Queen Elizabeth I enjoyed fireworks so much that she named the best firework makers in the country the 'Fire Master of England'. (Above shows an engraving of a dragon firework that would shoot fireworks out of its mouth.)
In 1834 the cellar in the Houses of Parliament that the gunpowder had been put in was destroyed in an accidental fire.
(Children with a Hitler-style guy, Waterloo, London, 5 November 1944, D H Appleton, Daily Herald Archive, Science Museum Group collection Source: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/bonfire-night-in-our-photography-collection-1899-to-1949/)
During the first and second world wars no one was allowed to light bonfires or set off fireworks due to the nationwide blackouts to protect the country from air attacks. Instead celebrations took place inside.
The Yeomen of the Guard still search the houses of Parliament before the state opening in November... just in case.
(Source: https://www.medievalists.net/2019/09/archaeologists-discover-medieval-man-broken-on-the-wheel/)
The Catherine Wheel has a very morbid origin. It was said that Catherine of Alexandria was tortured on a wheel by the Emperor Maxentius for refusing to renounce Christianity. This was a particularly horrible medieveal toture method but for Catherine the wheel broke and she was beheaded. She became a martyr and thus the firework, 'the Catherine Wheel', was named after her.
And finally there are two islands in the Galapagos named Isla Guy Fawkes. It is unknown why the islands took his name.