Bonfire Night: Remember, Remember

Every year on the 5th of November, the sky over Britain is filled with fireworks. Huge bonfires are lit in parks and fields, and families stand around them in hats and scarves, holding hot drinks. This is Bonfire Night, also called Guy Fawkes Night, and its story begins more than four hundred years ago.

In 1605, England was ruled by King James I. Many Catholics were unhappy because they were not allowed to practice their religion freely. A small group of them decided to kill the king. Their plan was to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London while the king was inside. Thirty-six barrels of gunpowder were hidden in a cellar under the building.

One of the men was Guy Fawkes, an expert in explosives. On the night of the 4th of November, he was guarding the gunpowder when he was discovered by the king's soldiers. The plot had been revealed in a secret letter a few days earlier. Fawkes was arrested, and he and the other plotters were later executed.

When the news spread that the king was safe, people in London lit bonfires to celebrate. The next year, a law was passed that made the 5th of November a day of celebration. For centuries, children made a figure of Guy Fawkes, called a "guy", out of old clothes and newspaper, and it was burned on the bonfire.

Today, most people don't think much about the history. For them, Bonfire Night is simply a fun evening in the cold. Big public fireworks displays are organized by towns and cities, and people eat baked potatoes, sausages, toffee apples and a sticky cake called parkin. Children write their names in the air with sparklers. Many still repeat the old rhyme: "Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot."