The annual British holiday of Guy Fawkes Day, represented by the Guy Fawkes mask made famous in the U.S. by the 2006 Natalie Portman film, V for Vendetta, and a catchy little rhyme beginning with the line, "Remember, remember the fifth of November …" not to mention an annual celebration in which a disgraced celebrity is burned in effigy in Edenbridge, Kent, was celebrated on Monday night when a cutout of Tour de France cyclist Lance Armstrong went up in flames.
The Armstrong effigy was holding a sign that said, "For Sale: Racing Bike, No Longer Required," referring to the recent scandal, which stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles after he refused to undergo tests for doping charges.
And the U.S. didn't go untouched by the British holiday, either. Several NBC sites were hacked on Sunday by an individual (or group) going under the name "Pyknic." The main NBC site was down for a few hours, replaced by a looping clip that repeated, "Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."
The annual holiday calls to mind the English revolutionary who was involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which a group of Catholics tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament under the rule of the staunchly Protestant King James I. After the plot was foiled and Fawkes was executed, drawn and quartered and displayed outside the very building he sought to destroy, King James declared that the anniversary of the plot's failure should always be remembered.
Get Uinterview's FREE iPhone App For Daily News Updates here.
Get the FREE Uinterview iPad app here and watch our videos anywhere.
For more like this:
Lance Armstrong Resigns From Cancer Foundation, Gets Dropped By Nike
Lance Armstrong Stops Fighting Doping Charges, Stripped Of Seven Titles
Olympic Athletes Disqualified For Doping
Giants' Melky Cabrera Gets 50-Game Suspension For Doping
Runner Debbie Dunn Out Of Olympics Due To Doping
https://youtu.be/6TsNEFpuwqQ A passenger plane carrying people crashed in Aktau, Kazakhstan, on Dec. 25, Kazakh officials said. Preliminary information…
Fox detailed the pain of her relationship with Baker in poems such as the one…
It should be noted in contrast to Paxton's comments that there is, to date, zero…
Senate Democrats have accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of accepting millions of dollars in…
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez have firmly denied reports that they plan to marry in…
Britney Spears has removed Instagram posts following backlash over her dance videos, revealing that the…