38. English law used to force everyone to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night
Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in order to kill King James I. As Catholics, Fawkes and his gang didn’t want Protestant James as king. The plot, therefore, represented high treason. In the January following November 5, 1605, Parliament passed a law demanding people celebrate the plot’s failure. The Observance of 5th November Act 1605 demanded people celebrate the anniversary ‘with unfeigned thankfulness… for all ages to come’. If you weren’t happy about James’s deliverance, you were a traitor, too! Parliament repealed the Act in 1859, but most British people celebrate Guy Fawkes Night anyway.