Happy Guy Fawkes Night: “Guy Fawkes Night originates from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a failed conspiracy by a group of provincial English Catholics to assassinate the Anglican King James I of England and VI of Scotland and replace him with a Catholic head of state. The survival of the king was first celebrated on 5 November 1605, after Guy Fawkes, left in charge of the gunpowder placed underneath the House of Lords, was discovered and arrested.

The same month the surviving conspirators were executed, in January 1606 the Observance of 5th November Act 1605, commonly known as the “Thanksgiving Act” was passed, ensuring that for more than 250 years 5 November was kept free as a day of thanksgiving. According to historian and author Antonia Fraser, a study of the sermons preached on the first anniversary of 5 November demonstrates an anti-Catholic concentration “mystical in its fervour”. Each anniversary of the plot’s failure was for years celebrated by the ringing of church bells, special sermons, and the lighting of bonfires. Further controversies such as the marriage of Charles I to the Catholic Henrietta Maria of France and the 1679 Popish Plot helped fuel the popularity of the events, which at times became a celebration not of the deliverance of a monarch, but of anti-Papist sentiment…

Historically the date has been celebrated by the burning of effigies of contemporary hate-figures… Some modern instances of burning effigies exist; in Lewes in 1994 revellers immolated the effigies of politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and John Major, alongside Fawkes.” (via Wikipedia)