On this day, January 31, in 1606, at Westminster in London, Guy Fawkes, a chief conspirator in the plot to blow up the British Parliament building, jumped to his death moments before his execution for his role in the “Gunpowder Plot” against King James I.
The conspirators, whose aim was to displace Protestant rule and end discrimination against English Catholics, rented a cellar beneath the House of Lords where they hid 1,800 pounds of gunpowder. Tipped by a Catholic lord who had been warned to stay away from Parliament, authorities found Fawkes leaving the cellar.
Fawkes was found guilty of treason and taken to the gallows. Weakened by torture, Fawkes still managed to jump, breaking his neck.
Britons still celebrate his demise each Nov. 5, on the anniversary of his capture, by burning his effigies and setting fireworks.
— Scott McCabe
