More are familiar with the mustached mask donned worldwide by protesters at demonstrations against government, known as the Guy Fawkes mask, than the man it was named after.
During the first week of November in 1605, Fawkes gained notoriety worldwide as the "Gunpowder Plot" was discovered.
Back in the early 1600s, England was a Protestant country. The government of King James I oppressed the Catholic minority of the country. The government persecuted, tortured and even executed people of the faith.
In 1605, a man named Robert Catesby organized a group of Catholic dissidents to strike back. The plan was to replace the king with one who favored Catholics.
Their plan became known as the Gunpowder Plot, as the rebels planned to store gunpowder under the Parliament building. On the day the king was to meet with Parliament, the gunpowder would be lit and destroy the building, taking the government with it.
The plot went on unnoticed, even as the rebels stored the gunpowder in an open cellar under the building.
However, on November 4, 1605 one of the conspirators tipped off a family member to not attend the Parliament meeting with the king. That family member turned over the plot to kings’ government.
On the 5 of November, royal guards found Guy Fawkes sitting by the gunpowder kegs waiting to light the fuse. He was arrested and then tortured until he revealed the entirety of the plot.
That ended the Catholic uprising in England.
However, it wasn’t until the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” was turned into a movie that Guy Fawkes reappeared in the public eye.
In the movie, the dissident hero dons a mask styled like Guy Fawkes as he takes on a draconian British government.
It became a large part of early 2000s pop culture. Then the hacker activist group “Anonymous” brought the mask to the world of protests.
While staging a public protest the Church of Scientology members of Anonymous wore the masks. They felt it maintained their individual anonymity and created a powerful image of protest.
Since then it has become more synonymous with anonymous than Guy Fawkes himself. So, maybe Fawkes did light that powder keg of change. It just took the fuse 400 years to burn.