[Alex Murphy]

A staggering 13 per cent of people could not identify the Houses of Parliament as the target of the infamous Gunpowder Plot. Three per cent of clueless participants even named the London Eye as Fawkes' target - even though it was erected almost 400 years later - a figure that, shockingly, rises to eight per cent among London residents.

One in 20 thought the religious conspirator - who was captured in a cellar beneath the House of Lords on 5 November, 1605 with 36 barrels of gunpowder - tried to blow up The Tower of London. Other UK landmarks named in the survey of 2,000 British adults include Stonehenge, 10 Downing Street and Edinburgh Castle....

In 1605, 13 young men planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament in what is now called "the Gunpowder Plot". The Gunpowder Plot came about after Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603. English Catholics, who had been persecuted under her rule, were bitterly disappointed when her successor, James I, who had a Catholic mother, failed to be more tolerant of their religion. Their leader Robert Catesby decided to blow up the Houses of Parliament, hoping to kill the King, the Prince of Wales, and the MPs who were making life difficult for Catholics.

Among 13 young men was Guy Fawkes, Britain's most notorious traitor and Roman Catholic convert. He was arrested in Parliament's cellar with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Fawkes was tried, convicted, and executed for treason.

Even now, four hundred years later, the reigning monarch only enters the Parliament once a year for the State Opening of Parliament. And before the opening, according to custom, the Yeomen of the Guard searches the cellars of the Palace of Westminster.

Related threads:
Guy Fawkes in the U.S.
Guy Fawkes’ Day: The significance of November 5th
Jumping off the scaffold [Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot]
‘Master Illusionist’ (Tower of London Is Hallowed for the Blood St. Nicholas Owen Spilled There)
Book bound in skin of executed Jesuit to be auctioned in England
Royal succession law change bid fails
The Act of Settlement is just fine [as a Catholic, this writer is happy with it]
Happy Guy Fawkes Day

[Salamander]

“In View, a humble Vaudevillian Veteran cast Vicariously as both Victim and Villain by the Vicissitudes of fate.
This Visage, no mere Veneer of Vanity is a Vestige of the Vox populi, now Vacant, Vanished.
However, this Valorous Visitation of a bygone Vexation stands Vivified and has Vowed to Vanquish these Venal and Virulent Vermin Vanguarding Vice and Vouchsafing the Violently Vicious and Voracious Violation of Volition.
The only Verdict is Vengeance, a Vendetta…held as a Votive not in Vain, for the Value and Veracity of such…shall one day Vindicate the Vigilant and the Virtuous.
Verily, this Vichyssoise of Verbiage Veers most Verbose.
So let me simply add that it’s my Very good honor to meet you……and you may call me V.”

[BigCinBigD]

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

[Jim from C-Town]

I wonder what percentage of Americans do not know who Benedict Arnold was. Or how the Electoral College works or why it is significant to our republic.

Hell, I bet 20% or more of the American Public wouldn't correctly Identify Joe Biden as the Vice President of the U.S.