This is the story of what happened to make the 5th of November become so famous in English history. Remember, remember! The 5th of November, The Gunpowder treason and plot; There is no reason Why the Gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot! This short story is about Catholic conspirator Guy Fawkes, who was part of the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It explains the origins of the English 5th of November celebrations with humorous cartoon-style illustrations to bring the story alive.

Gebannt verbringt Guy Stunden vor seinem Computer: Dank seiner neuen CD-Rom ist er in das Jahr 1605 zurückversetzt und erfährt von den spannenden Ereignissen, die zu dem Tag führen, der heute noch in England als Guy Fawkes Day gefeiert wird. (Quelle: www.klett.de).

This biography looks behind the mask of the seventeenth-century rebel who became a controversial folk hero for his role in the infamous Gunpowder Plot. Today, Guy Fawkes is an instantly recognizable symbol of violent rebellion across the globe. Some proudly dress in his image while others burn his effigy. But few people know the story of the man behind the legend. In The Real Guy Fawkes, biographer Nick Holland explores his eventful life and the complicated, dangerous era in which he lived. Born in York in 1570, Fawkes was raised Protestant, yet went on to plan mass murder for the Catholic cause. Prepared to risk everything and endanger countless lives, was he a freedom fighter, a treasonous fanatic, or merely a fool? Holland offers a fresh take on Fawkes’s early life, showing how he was radicalized into a Catholic mercenary and a key member of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. Featuring beautiful illustrations, this accessible and engaging biography combines contemporary accounts with modern analysis to reveal new motivations behind his actions.

Guy Fawkes is amongst the most celebrated figures in English history and Bonfire Night is a remarkably long lived and very English tradition. But why is it that in a modern, multicultural society people still turn out every November to commemorate a planned act of treason and terrorism which was defeated four hundred years ago? Had the Gunpowder Plot succeeded and the Catholics managed to blow up the king, the royal family and Parliament, English history would have been shaped by a terrorist act of unprecedented proportions, shattering in terms of both the damage inflicted and its propaganda value. James Sharpe examines the fateful night of 5 November 1605 and the tangled web of religion and politics which gave rise to the plot. He uncovers how celebration of the event, and of Guy Fawkes, the one gunpowder plotter everyone remembers, has changed over the centuries. Today, although most of the religious connotations have long been ignored, the bonfires remain. The festival created in 1605 by the state and church to commemorate a failed act of Catholic terrorism, now provides an annual raison d'être for the firework industry and an annual source of concern for Britain's cat owners. Every year the crowds gather, the bonfires are lit and the firework displays dazzle again. Interestingly however, the tradition is fast changing and reverting to the pre-Gunpowder Plot festival (now much Americanised) of Halloween.

Had you said "What a guy!" in 17th-century England, anyone would have understood you were admiring a flaming effigy of Guy Fawkes of the Gunpowder Treason Plot. How times have changed! In America and, indeed, most of the English-speaking world, "guy" is so embedded in daily speech that we scarcely notice how odd it truly is: a singular "guy" referring to males only, a plural "guys" encompassing the entire human race. The journey from England's greatest villain to America's favorite second-person plural pronoun offers a story rich with surprising and unprecedented turns. Through his trademark breezy, highly readable style, acclaimed writer Allan Metcalf takes us deep into this history, uncovering the intrigue, murderous plots, and torture out of which the word emerged in 1605. From there, it's a thrilling run through 17th-century England, bloody religious controversies, and across the Atlantic to America, where the word took on a life of its own, exploding into popular culture and day-to-day conversation. From the disappearance of thou, to George Washington and the American Revolution, to the modern revival of Guy Fawkes in V for Vendetta, Metcalf explores the improbable history of a simple word so indispensable to our daily lives, and that evokes deep insights into the evolution of English itself.

There was a real plot we shall have to judge for ourselves as the tense story unfolds; but it is not to be wondered at that Englishmen felt a shock of horror and of relief from catastrophe on November 5, 1605, or that we still celebrate the deliverance. Men, who were themselves good, in the sense that they were filled with religious zeal, had certainly planned one of the most evil deeds in history. They had planned murder on a mass scale; murder of King and Lords. The aim of this book is to take a familiar event in history and examine the cause and effect so that it no longer stands isolated from its background.

I bet you've never even heard of the Stuarts. They don't sound very terrible, do they? But did you know some slimy Stuarts ate toads, snails and fleas?