Welsh connections to The Gunpowder Plot, 5th November 1605;

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a failed attempt by a Catholic group led by Robert Catesby  to kill King James I by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of England's Parliament. One of the conspirators, Guy Fawkes, was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder. He was sentenced, along with seven other conspirators, to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

* Welsh spymaster Hugh Owen ( 1538 - 1618 ) a fervent Catholic who had vowed to destroy the Protestant Order, is believed to have masterminded the Gunpowder Plot. He had helped plan the Spanish Armada and was implicated in plots to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, after which he had fled to Europe.

It is believed that it was Owen who originally introduced Guy Fawkes to the other conspirators, and Owen was also named in Fawkes' trial as the man ‘whose finger hath been in every treason which hath been of late years detected’. Owen escaped retribution, enjoying the safe haven of Catholic Europe.  Several assassination attempts against him failed, and Owen died peacefully of old age in Rome.

* Father Robert Jones who resided at the Jesuits' South Wales Mission "Cwm" in Llanrothal, Herefordshire, was implicated in an attempt to save two of the Gunpowder Plot perpetrators.  

On the 5th November 1757, the Welsh poet Goronwy Owen emigrated to America. 

Goronwy Owen is considered by a great majority of Welsh scholars to be the most gifted poet and linguist of the 18th century; perhaps of all time.  He was a master of the cynghanedd (described in the University of Wales dictionary as 'a system of consonance or alliteration in a line of Welsh poetry in strict metre') and along with his patron and friend Lewis Morris, played a significant part in rescuing the Welsh bardic tradition from oblivion.

Owen briefly attended Jesus College, Oxford, before embarking on a short lived career as a teacher before becoming a curate. He moved to Oswestry, where he married, but was hounded out by debt collectors, and sought refuge near Shrewsbury where he composed many of his most famous poems. His lifestyle became increasingly profligate, and in 1757, he accepted a position as a teacher at a grammar school in Williamsburgh, Virginia. He lost his wife and one child to sickness on the journey; he re-married in America but his second wife died within a few months. He was dismissed from the school as a consequence of his excessive drinking and spent his final years as a parish parson in Brunswick County where he married for the third time. 

Goronwy attempted to revitalise Welsh poetry at a time when its traditional patrons, the Welsh gentry, were being anglicised. He wanted to reinvent the traditional poetic style for his own age. Instead of poetry eulogising the gentry, Owen deals with subjects such as spiritual fulfilment and romantic longing. Poems such as 'Awdl Gofuned' are considered masterpieces by literary scholars.

      

On 5th November 1854, Hugh Rowlands, a captain in the 41st (Welsh) Regiment of Foot, from Llanrug, near Caernarfon, became the first Welshman to be awarded the Victoria Cross.

At Inkermand during the Crimean War, Captain Rowlands and Private John McDermond rescued Colonel Hayly of the 47th Regiment who had been wounded and surrounded by Russian soldiers.  

He also distinguished himself during the siege of Sevastopol and was again nominated for a Victoria Cross. He served in the West Indies and India and as a brigadier-general during the later stages of the Zulu War.  On his return to Britain, he was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower of London.

Merthyr born Samuel Griffith became Prime Minister of Queensland inNovember 1883.

Griffith's family moved to Queensland, which was then known as the Moreton Bay district of New South Wales, in 1853, when he was eight years old. He was well educated, and on graduating with first class honours, he travelled widely in Europe, becoming particularly enamoured of Italian Literature. He was the first Australian to translate Dante.

Griffith studied law on his return to Brisbane and was called to the bar in 1867. He entered politics and played a major part in the public life of Australia. He became premier and Chief Justice of Queensland and was one of the key authors of the Constitution of Australia.   

Born on this day 1967 in Haverfordwest

Jamie Owen - journalist, broadcaster and writer, best known as a presenter on BBC Wales' flagship news programme, BBC Wales Today. 

Since joining the BBC in 1986, he worked mainly in radio until becoming a television presenter in 1994.  He also continues to present a weekday morning show on BBC Radio Wales. He  presents a talk programme for BBC Radio Wales on Sundays and has presented Songs of Praise, BBC Breakfast News and BBC Radio 4's Shipping Forecast.  He has also worked with the BBC World Service Trust in the Middle East.