November 5: Guy Fawkes Day

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.

Guy Fawkes (April 1570 – 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. He was born and educated in York, England; his father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married a recusant Catholic.

Guy Fawkes was one of the plotters. Fawkes used the pseudonym "John Johnson."

The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on 26 October 1605. During a search of the House of Lords in the evening on 4 November 1605, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder—enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble—and arrested. Most of the conspirators fled from London as they learned of the plot's discovery, trying to enlist support along the way. Several made a stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men at Holbeche House; in the ensuing battle, Catesby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on 27 January 1606, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

Although weakened by his torture, Fawkes managed to jump from the gallows and break his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the gruesome latter part of his execution.

In January 1606, during the first sitting of Parliament since the plot, the Observance of 5th November Act 1605 was passed, making services and sermons commemorating the event an annual feature of English life; the act remained in force until 1859. The tradition of marking the day with the ringing of church bells and bonfires started soon after the Plot's discovery, and fireworks were included in some of the earliest celebrations. In Britain, 5 November is variously called Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night, or Guy Fawkes Night.

It remains the custom in Britain, on or around 5 November, to let off fireworks. Traditionally, in the weeks running up to the 5th, children made "guys"—effigies supposedly of Fawkes—usually made from old clothes stuffed with newspaper, and fitted with a grotesque mask, to be burnt on 5 November bonfire. These guys were exhibited in the street to collect money for fireworks, although this custom has become less common.

The word guy thus came in the 19th century to mean an oddly dressed person, and hence in the 20th and 21st centuries to mean any male person.

Remember, remember,

The Fifth of November,

Gunpowder treason and plot;

For I see no reason

Why Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Nursery rhyme

November 5, 1916, the Everett massacre takes place in Everett, Washington as political differences lead to a shoot-out between the Industrial Workers of the World organizers and local police.

November 5, 1990, Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right Kach movement, is shot dead after a speech at Midtown Manhattan's New York Marriott East Side, at 525 Lexington Avenue, by by El Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen who had trained in Pakistan. Nosair was later convicted of the murder in U.S. District Court for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Some researchers, such as Peter Lance, consider Kahane one of the first, if not the first, American victims of the new group Al Qaeda, since his killer is believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's network. The cell that Kahane's assassin belonged to had been training in the New York Metro system since mid-1989.

In August 2010, the Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post claimed that Nosair had two partners and that his original target was Israeli military figure and future Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "He added that on the night he shot Kahane dead, he was accompanied by two co-conspirators to the Marriot Hotel in Manhattan where Kahane was speaking – one of whom was also carrying a gun. The men, Bilal al-Kaisi of Jordan and Mohammed A. Salameh, a Palestinian illegal alien later involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, have never been charged for their part in the slaying."


November 5, 2009, U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan murders 13 and wounds 32 at Fort Hood, Texas in the deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. military installation.

November 5, 2016, presidential candidate Donald J. Trump is rushed off stage in Reno, Nevada, during a pseudo-assassination scare.

November 5, 2017, Devin Patrick Kelley kills 26 and injured 20 in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

These violent delights have violent ends.

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet: Act 2, Scene 6.