Why is November 5 called Guy Fawkes Day? The date marks the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, an attempt to destroy England’s Parliament. Bonfire Night and Firework Night are other familiar names for the annual commemoration.

This year, there is also a reason to look beyond the fireworks: records that help explain the tradition now belong to a collection housed at The National Archives in Kew, London. The story is about British history and its surviving documents, not a new event in Canada.

How November 5 became a yearly commemoration

Parliament’s official history explains that a Thanksgiving Act passed in January 1606 established an annual observance on November 5, including services and sermons. That is a useful distinction: the plot happened in 1605, while the legislation followed the next January.

The surviving record of the act is catalogued under 1605. Readers looking at the document listing should not mistake that catalogue year for the month and year Parliament gives for its passage.

Where the records are now

Parliament says its archive collection has moved to Kew, where The National Archives provides its new home. The institution describes the move in terms of long-term preservation and access to the records.

The Guardian reported on November 3 that the Bonfire Night law is among the transferred records.

That report’s date is not the date every document was moved. The official archive page describes the wider relocation, so it is better to treat this as a fresh look at the collection than to claim that the transfer happened this week.

Three names, one date

If you see Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Firework Night used together, Parliament’s Gunpowder Plot FAQ connects those names with the November 5 commemoration. The terminology can vary, but the historical reference is the same.

The original records add something a fireworks photograph cannot: they show how a failed plot became an annual public observance, and how that history was written into law.