Guy Fox Night

Guy Fawkes Day or Night (also known as Bonfire Night) celebrates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It's truly amusing, to have a holiday that commemorates something that never actually happened 🤔. But it makes sense, because if it HAD happened, the consequences would have been really tragical 👑.

As it often comes, the reason for the conflict was religion.

Roman Catholics were angry with King James for not giving them enough freedoms and tolerance. Instead of negotiating the matter, they decided to — what? — right, kill the king and the Parliament by a huge blowup 💣🔥. Brilliant strategy, right? Everything was thoroughly planned, the explosives were stashed in the Parliament's building cellar, but something went wrong. Somebody leaked the plan to the authorities. There's a theory about an anonymous letter. Anyways, one of the conspirators, Guy Fawkes, was detained one day before the attack. After long tortures, Fawkes turned in his buddies and the plan, thus saving the king's family and the whole Parliament. He was to be executed anyways, because he was still an accomplice and a traitor, responsible for the explosives.

Today Guy Fawkes Night presents various activities for celebration. Among them:

• bonfires 🔥, which serve for burning the straw effigies of Fawkes and sometimes other political figures.
• reciting rhymes to strangers 🎭, asking “a penny for the guy”, if you're carrying an effigy. chills!
• fireworks 🎆, representing the never happened explosions. sometimes arsons happen in the Parliament, but guards make sure that everything is all right by ceremonial search of the building.

Use our Guy Fawkes Night set of emojis to report on such an important date in your history class!