Kaboom!

Jenna and I's dating anniversary is the 5th of November (1997, if you're really interested). Turns out that England thinks that was a pretty important event, because it is the one day where they set off fireworks (other than New Years). We appreciate that the Brits have decided to give us the attention that we rightly deserve.

So here is a quick history lesson on why they really have the fireworks this day...

So in the 1500s, Henry VIII (of many wives fame) changed religion in England, breaking from the Catholic church in order to divorce his first wife. After he died, there was a struggle between the Catholics and Protestants, depending who was on the throne. His son Edward, a Protestant, took the throne first, and wasn't exactly nice to the Catholics in England. After his short reign, Henry's daughter from his first marriage Mary, a Catholic, took the throne and enacted a good deal of revenge on the Protestants who'd been in power, earning her the title of Bloody Mary.

After Mary died, her sister Elizabeth (Anne Boleyn's daughter), took over and reigned for over 40 years, ushering in what is now thought of as the Golden Age for England, when life was relatively stable, they defeated the Spanish Armada, and Shakespeare was on the scene. Maybe more importantly was the fact that although she was officially Protestant, she was mostly neutral toward the Catholics living in the country. She made several concessions to how the Church of England worshipped to be more in line with the Catholics, and she didn't go around burning them as heretics.

When she died in 1603, James I came to the throne. The hope was that he would be as open minded as his predecessor, but it didn't exactly turn out that way. As a result, a few radicals decided that he needed to go.

At that time, the monarch spent quite a bit of time in the Parliament, and where the king goes, the important people follow. There are apparently a lot of tunnels and cellars that run underneath the building. These radicals started a conspiracy to blow up the building, including the king and most of the nobility with it. If you've seen the film "V for Vendetta", this may sound somewhat familiar. They rented out a cellar underneath the Parliament and over some time filled it with 36 barrels of gunpowder.

They started feeling a little bad, because they knew that there were a few guys in the Parliament who were Catholic themselves. An anonymous letter made its way to one of these guys, saying to stay away for a little while. He played it smart and passed the letter to the king, who started a search. Early in the morning on the 5th of November, they caught a gentleman by the name of Guy Fawkes in the room with all the gunpowder, and the plot was discovered and thwarted.

In order to celebrate the fact that the king was saved, the citizens of London lit bonfires across the city. Ever since, the night of the Fifth of November is known as Bonfire Night, although it is more commonly referred to as Guy Fawkes Day. Not really sure why they named the day after the conspirator, but that's another story. They still light bonfires throughout the country, but over the years they've also added the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes, and they also do big fireworks displays.

We went to 2 displays - one on Thursday the 5th and another on the Saturday. Based on these, we decided that the UK does fireworks a heck of a lot better than the US. We've seen 4th of July displays in Kansas City, Addison Texas (supposedly one of the best in the country), and two in Washington DC, where you'd think they'd have the best show around and countless others. Must say that these two random shows that we saw - both within walking distance of our flat (not like outside Buckingham or anything) - stood up to any that we've seen at home.

The first was in Clapham Common, just south of our flat. It was free, and much better than we expected. It lasted 25 minutes, and was pretty much big and fancy from the beginning. They had some music playing in the background as well, but the speaker system wasn't the best. Either way, the show was good.

On Saturday, Eric and Anne came down and we went to Battersea Park, just north of our flat. This one did charge a small admission, but the show was well worth it. They had the whole show set to contemporary music that was playing over huge speakers. The show went non-stop with huge explosions across the sky. It was really awesome.

The only thing that made it a little weird was the fact that we were watching fireworks in full coats and still feeling cold, which just didn't feel right. In all though, we thought it was a really nice way to celebrate our anniversary.