Every year on the 5th of November, the UK celebrates one of the strangest holidays I’ve ever experienced: Bonfire Night. What is it about? Glad you asked.
Bonfire Night is also known as Guy Fawkes Day, because of the man you may recognise as the one from the film V for Vendetta or the face of the Anonymous activist group. The Guy Fawkes masks are not a random choice, they represent the events that happened in London on 5 November 1605.
At the time, Britain was ruled by a Protestant king, James I, who wasn’t happy for everyone to have their own religion. A group of Catholic men, who weren’t happy about this religious intolerance, formed a terrorist group known as the Gunpowder Plot, and planned to murder King James I and replace him with a catholic monarch. And they were very close to achieving it when Guy Fawkes, a member of the plot, was caught guarding a bunch of explosives in a cellar below the Parliament building.
They didn’t manage to blow up parliament, or the king, and all members of the Gunpowder Plot were captured and later executed. Soon after Guy Fawkes had been captured, the government allowed the population to make bonfires in order to celebrate that the king was still alive and well. Therefore, 1605 was the first year when Bonfire night was celebrated. By 1606, the 5th of November had become a national day of celebrations, and the bonfires became tradition.
It also became tradition to make effigies of Guy Fawkes, called “guys”, who were carried around and later thrown in a bonfire. And the famous rhyme came about:
Remember, remember, the fifth of November
Gunpowder treason and plot
We see no reason
Why Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot….
At some point, fireworks also started to be used in the celebrations to represent the explosions that never took place in 1605.
If you join the Bonfire Night celebrations – and see the classic bonfires, effigies, fireworks and hear the very catchy rhyme – remember that we’re celebrating the events of 5th of November 1605, when religious intolerance led a group of religious extremists to plot a terrorist attack in order to replace the government with their own intolerant religion. I feel like there are no heroes or villains in this story, but probably a lesson to be learned (?). Or we could just enjoy the fireworks and drink mulled wine, I suppose.
Would you join the Bonfire Night celebrations? Are there any unusual celebrations in your country? Let us know in the comments.
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