Bonfire Night!

Happy Bonfire Night, everyone! I just got back from the festivities down at my college's boathouse, and I must say, never has a Thursday night been this exciting! Back at MIT, at this point in time, I would have been in my room or out in the common room struggling over problem sets with friends. Non-graded examples papers for the win! :)

Anyhow, you might be wondering: just what is Bonfire Night? Is it just another excuse for drinking and partying? Perhaps, but this is no ordinary celebration, and in fact, Bonfire Night is celebrated religiously all across the UK. Bonfire Night is in fact a commemoration of a failed plot to blow up Parliament back in 1605. The actual explosion, led by a man named Guy Fawkes, was so close to happening had it not been for an anonymous letter that tipped off authorities to search the House of Lords, where they found Fawkes guarding enough gunpowder to destroy Parliament. He and several of the other conspirateurs would later be tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.

In celebration of this failed attempt, many people back in the day lit bonfires, a tradition that still carries to this day as you can see below (apologies for the poor resolution!):

Nowadays though, celebrations take it a step further and have fireworks in addition to the traditional bonfire, as you can see here:

Not too shabby for a Thursday night, eh? They timed some of the fireworks quite nicely by pausing long enough to lead people to believe the fireworks were over, only to surprise everyone by suddenly shooting up a whole slew of them at once! Again, not bad for a Thursday evening!

Bonfire Night is great time to go out, hang out with friends, enjoy some food and drink, as well as some decent fireworks and a large bonfire. Especially given that this is a tradition unique to the UK and has no equivalent in the US, as an exchange student, I feel that these moments are practically a must to attend.

On a side note though, I am a little surprised that we do not have such a tradition in the US. From a practical standpoint, it's another excuse to go out partying and drinking on a week day, but from a historical standpoint, surely we must have had people or groups who have attempted to blow up/burn down the White House at some point in history. Oh wait, I think that was the British back in the War of 1812...awkward. Though I guess with Independence Day, a Bonfire-esque celebration does seem somewhat redundant, and it's not like we thwarted the British in their attempt to ransack the White House. Oh well, at least I tried! Can't fault me for that! :)