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November 5, 2016

Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919),

Forest Landscape: Figures Around a Fire, oil on canvas, 28 x 23 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, purchase/gift of the Mahonri M. Young Estate, 1959.

Today, November 5, is known in Great Britain as Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night. The day began as a day of thanksgiving that a treacherous plot to explode Parliament and thereby assassinate King James I failed. The day of thanksgiving included lighting bonfires, and developed into burning effigies of Guy Fawkes (the supposed orchestrator of the plot). Bonfire Night is still celebrated in Great Britain.