Who is this Guy Fawkes?

Kiwis (amongst others I think) celebrate a day called Guy Fawkes Day. It's not a national holiday, but it is one of the few days where it's legal to light of fireworks. No one I asked knew for sure what they were celebrating, but from what I gather is Guy Fawkes was a man who, a few centuries ago, tried to blow up the House of Parliament in England. Yeah, so let's recap - we are celebrating a guy, who is not from here, who tried to blow up the parliament. Good reason to light off fireworks? haha. I heard something about how they're celebrating the fact that the King survived it. Who knows. Anyways, that day was a bit of a weird weather day (more so than usual). We were going to have a picnic on the beach and wait for the sun to go down. When we left the grocery store it was POURING. We got to the beach - still pouring, but SNOWING in the hills. I think there may have been hail as well. But the sun came out, it cleared up and we had our picnic on the beach. We went over to New Brighton (beach suburb of Christchurch), where they lit fireworks off the pier. I have to say, after being spoiled by the Symphony of Fire year after year in Vancouver other fireworks don't usually impress me. But these were really good. And set to music.
So whether it's a holiday celebrating a terrorist or not, it was a grand evening :) Plus a good way to test out the fireworks setting on my new camera :)