You know that famous mask that the hacktivist group Anonymous has made their symbol? You may have thought the disguise originated from the 2005 movie V for Vendetta, but the birth of the mask dates all the way back to the 1600s. The mask was originally made famous by Guy Fawkes, who was one of the conspirators behind the Gunpowder Plot, where a small group of English Catholics planned to assassinate the Protestant King James by blowing up the House of Lords in London and replace him with his daughter in 1605. The revolution failed, but Fawkes has been celebrated every year on Nov. 5th with Guy Fawkes Night. The story of the Gunpowder Plot will be told in the upcoming HBO miniseries titled Gunpowder starring Kit Harington.
While Fawkes got all of the notoriety, Robert Catesby was probably an even more important figure than Fawkes in the Gunpowder Plot and was the one who devised the plan to assassinate King James I because he was persecuting Catholics. Catesby is who Harington will be portraying in the upcoming HBO TV show. Gunpowder also stars Peter Mullan, Liv Tyler, Derek Riddell as King James, and fellow Game of Thrones alumni Mark Gatiss who was Iron Bank of Braavos employee Tycho Nestoris. The three-part historical epic originally aired on BBC One and was well-received but some found it to be too gruesome and violent. Which only makes me want to see it more. Gunpowder debuts on HBO at 10 pm on Dec. 18. This is as close as you will come to seeing Kit Harington on HBO until Game of Thrones returns in 2019.