Guy Fawkes Day!

 


Guy Fawkes was a Catholic who, tired of being pushed around by King James I, decided to take matters into his own hands. He intended to do this by blowing up the British Parliament and the King with it.

He failed, was hung, and beheaded.

From Wikipedia:

The practice of referring to people as "guy" or "guys" began shortly after Fawkes was made famous by the Gunpowder Plot.In 18th-century England, the term was originally used to refer to an effigy of Fawkes, which would be paraded around town by children on the anniversary of the conspiracy. It is traditional for children to go door-to-door with their creation asking for a small donation using the term "Penny For The Guy".In recent years this has attracted controversy as some regard it as nothing more than begging. Whilst it was traditional for children to spend the money raised on fireworks, this is now illegal, as persons under 18 cannot buy fireworks or even be in possession of them in a public place.

And this is interesting, too (from Rick Brookhiser, via NRO):
"November 5 was celebrated in New England as Pope Day (that is, Anti-Pope Day). The neighborhoods of Boston would make images of the Pope, the Jacobite Pretender, and Guy Fawkes, and burn them; there were also fun-filled brawls in which one neighborhood's gang would try to steal the images of another.
Washington banned these festivities in his General Orders, November 5, 1775 (see the George Washington Papers website at the Library of Congress to read the original). He calls it "a ridiculous and childish custom," especially at a time when we are "solliciting, and have readily obtain'd, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada." We were hoping to drive the British out of Canada; our effort would fail before the walls of Quebec on New Year's Eve.

That was realpolitik; more interesting, and admirable, was the decision of Washington, and many other founders, to attend mass during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. George Mason didn't like the ringing of the bell, which he compared to the signal for raising the curtain at a puppet show. But he, and the others, went to show that these were good Americans too."