Raging River named after British Revolutionary

Guy Fawkes was caught on this day in 1605 trying to blow up the British Parliament.


Guy Fawkes River at Ebor Falls/NSW



Fawkes was tortured to reveal the names of his fellow conspirators, then sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered in London. Climbing up the ladder to the hanging platform, fawkes jumped off and broke his neck.


A river and a national park in the New England area of Northern New South Wales, approximately 560km north of Sydney and 80km east of Armidale have been named after him. The park offers spectacular views over rugged gorge country, excellent bushwalking and is home to brumbies and a range of threatened plant and animal species.

The most famous place within the park is Ebor Falls on the Waterfall Way, which connects Armidale with Coffs Harbour on the coast and is one of the 'must-do' road trips in Australia!


Elsewhere in the world, Frederick the Great defeated the Allied French and Austrian armies at the Battle of Rossbach with minimal casualties despite facing an opponent nearly three times the strength of his own troops (Saxony, 1757), Parker Brothers launched the board game "Monopoly" (1935), Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees survived a railcrash in Britain, which killed 49 people (Hither Green/UK, 1967) and Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death (Baghdad/Iraq, 2006).

Australia's first Olympic athlete and gold medal winner in the 1896 games in Athens, Edwin Flack, was born on this day (London/UK, 1873), as were Rudolf Augstein, founder of the German news magazine "Der Spiegel" (Hanover/Germany, 1923), the first football player to score in four consecutive World Cup tournaments, Uwe Seeler (Hamburg, 1937), Fench-singing American singer-songwriter Joe Dassin (Brooklyn/NY, 1938), half of Simon & Garfunkel, Art Garfunkel (New York, 1941), Peter Noone, better known as Herman of Herman's "No Milk Today" Hermits (Davyhulme/UK, 1947) and Canadian rock super star Bryan Adams (Kingston/Ontario, 1959) while the world lost comic writer Rene Goscinny of Asterix and Lucky Luke fame (Paris/France, 1977).