20 Flag Details That Make A Lot More Sense Once You Know The History

The so-called “Jolly Roger,” that most sinister of emblems from the Golden Age of Piracy, was likely more “la jolie rouge,” French for “the pretty red,” though sailors also knew the same black flag as “Old Roger.” And surprisingly, seeing the black flag could actually be the better option: the crew would be allowed to live if they surrendered immediately. Only if a ship resisted attack did pirates raise a solid red flag, warning that no one onboard would be spared. This use of the black and red flags is borne out in Admiralty trials.

When Prince Pedro I declared Brazil’s independence on September 7, 1822, he chose the colors of his flag based on the royal houses he represented: green for the House of Braganza, his own royal family, and yellow for the House of Habsburg-Lothringen, from which his wife, Empress Maria Leopoldina of Austria, hailed. The idea that green represents the Amazon rainforest and yellow the country’s gold reserves came later as a popular interpretation. Brazil became a republic in 1889, and while the colors remained the same, the crest was changed.

On May 2, 1927, the territory of Alaska adopted its official flag, 32 years before achieving statehood. And get this: the flag had come from a contest for students in grades 7 through 12. The winning design, out of 142 total entries, came from 14-year-old John Ben “Benny” Benson, who resided in an orphanage in Seward, Alaska. He was of Unangax̂ and Swedish descent. His design of eight gold stars—seven forming the Big Dipper and one representing Polaris, the North Star—on a blue background won the $1,000 prize and an engraved watch. That kid definitely had something to boast about for the rest of his life.

Have you ever noticed that the Union Jack is off-center? Well, there’s a reason for this! The odd-looking crosses are the result of heraldic law, the traditional rules governing coats of arms and similar symbols. When Great Britain and Ireland united on January 1, 1801, under the Act of Union, the two nations’ diagonal crosses—a red one for St. Patrick’s Ireland and a white one for St. Andrew’s Scotland—had to be combined. Heralds used a technique known as counterchanging, arranging the colors so neither cross completely covered the other, which is why the red cross looks oddly divided. They also kept the white cross in the position of higher heraldic precedence, closest to the flagpole.

Texans believe that Texas is the only state that can fly its flag at the same height as the U.S. flag. The truth is that each state has that same right. The Lone Star Flag was originally adopted by the independent Republic of Texas on January 25, 1839, as the nation’s flag, six years before Texas joined the United States. The single white star symbolized Texas’s independence.

The 11 red-and-white stripes on Liberia’s flag represent the country’s 11 male delegates who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 26, 1847. But those men didn’t design the U.S.-inspired flag themselves. A committee of seven Liberian women designed and stitched the national banner. The women, led by Susannah Elizabeth Lewis, revealed their completed work on August 24, 1847.

The familiar red cross on a white background is essentially the Swiss flag with its colors reversed. The Red Cross was founded by Swiss humanitarian Henry Dunant and the Committee of Five in Geneva in October 1863, and the organization needed a neutral, universally recognizable symbol. The reversed Swiss colors honored the country where the movement began; they weren’t intended as a Christian symbol.

There’s a popular story that England essentially rented its flag from the Italian city of Genoa. According to the tale, King Richard I agreed in 1190 to pay Genoa an annual tribute for the right to use its civic banner—the red cross on a white background—which was then adopted by English crusaders and merchants and eventually became England’s national flag. There’s just one problem: historian W.G. Perrin could find no evidence of such a treaty during his archival research, published in 1922.

Contrary to popular belief, the crescent moon and star did not originate with Islam. In ancient Byzantium (the city that later became Constantinople and modern Istanbul), the symbol was associated with the goddess Artemis. After Constantinople was conquered in 1453 by the forces of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, the city’s crest became part of Ottoman heraldry. Early Islamic dynasties did not employ the crescent and star. In 1844, Ottoman reforms included the standardization of a red flag with a white crescent and five-pointed star.

Christopher Gadsden, a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress, came up with the famous yellow flag bearing the coiled rattlesnake and the words “DONT TREAD ON ME,” commissioned in December 1775 for American naval commander Commodore Esek Hopkins’ fleet. But Benjamin Franklin had already helped popularize the rattlesnake as a symbol of the American colonies through his famous 1754 cartoon. In December 1775, Franklin also wrote an essay praising the American timber rattlesnake for its vigilant eye, audible rattler as a warning mechanism, and refusal to retreat once roused. Franklin the pen; Gadsden the painter’s easel.

During the Siege of Boston, when American colonists were surrounding British forces in the city, George Washington ordered a new flag to be raised over Prospect Hill on January 1, 1776. The flag featured 13 red-and-white stripes alongside the British Union Jack because the colonists still considered themselves British subjects. In a letter to Joseph Reed, his military secretary, Washington explained that when the British troops in Boston saw the flag, they believed that the colonists had surrendered! This flag was different from the later American flag popularly associated with Betsy Ross.

The green, yellow, and red now seen on several African flags have an important connection to Ethiopia. Emperor Menelik II standardized Ethiopia’s green-yellow-red flag with the Lion of Judah on October 6, 1897, a year after Ethiopia defeated invading Italian forces at the Battle of Adwa. When Ghana gained independence in 1957, it became the first newly independent African country to adopt the colors in the postcolonial era. Several other countries followed as they achieved independence in the mid-1900s, using the colors in tribute to Ethiopia’s history of resisting colonial conquest.

For much of its history, Imperial China had no single national flag; individual regions and military units flew their own banners. But under Western pressure, a national flag was adopted in 1889. Its design featured an azure five-clawed dragon pursuing a red flaming pearl on a yellow field. Despite its ancient-looking imagery, the flag itself was relatively new, while the five-clawed dragon was a symbol reserved for the Emperor.

Contrary to common assumption, the Russian tricolor owes nothing to the French Revolution. When Russian Tsar Peter the Great toured Western Europe during his 1697-1698 “Grand Embassy,” he was so impressed by the strength of the Dutch Navy that he later adopted a version of its red-white-blue flag, rearranged into a white-blue-red tricolor. It was specified by a decree of January 31, 1705, for use on Russian merchant vessels and eventually influenced the Pan-Slavic colors later adopted as symbols of unity among Slavic peoples.

The Republic of Venice used the winged Lion of St. Mark on its red-and-gold flags, often accompanied by the traditional Latin motto, “Pax tibi Marce, evangelista meus.” But look at the lion’s paws, and you might notice an important difference. Merchant and civic flags showed the lion holding an open book, whereas warship and fortress flags showed the lion holding a closed book and a raised sword. Despite what you might assume from the sword, the latter flag was flown at all times, not just during war.

In late 1854, miners at Ballarat, Victoria, in what is now Australia, rebelled against the large fees charged by British authorities for mining licenses. They designed and raised the Eureka flag at Bakery Hill on November 29, 1854. On December 3, British forces put down the uprising at the Eureka Stockade, but the flag survived it. The rebel banner has a navy blue field bearing a white cross joining five eight-pointed stars that represent the Southern Cross constellation.

Chicago’s flag uses six-pointed stars because five-pointed stars represented sovereign states and other designs carried religious associations. The two sky-blue stripes represent Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. In 1917, after winning a design competition, Wallace Rice gave the city its flag. It started with two stars, but a third was added in 1933. A fourth was added in 1939.

The profile of a Moor’s head on the white background of the Corsican flag is a heraldic emblem that originated with the Crown of Aragon in the 14th century. In November 1755, Pasquale Paoli, leader of the newly declared independent Corsican Republic, decreed that the cloth covering the Moor’s eyes—interpreted as a symbol of the people’s subjugation—should be moved up onto his brow. The new flag was therefore not a new invention but a modification: Corsicans had opened their eyes to freedom.

South Korea’s national flag, known as the Taegukgi, is composed of a white field representing peace, with a large red-and-blue Taegeuk symbol in the middle and four trigrams drawn from the ancient Chinese text known as the I Ching. Together, the four trigrams represent Heaven, Earth, Fire, and Water. The original Taegukgi, designed by Joseon Dynasty diplomats in 1882, had eight trigrams but was later simplified to four. In 1949, the Republic of Korea formally standardized the flag.

Nepal’s unusually shaped national flag consists of two pennants, which can historically be traced back to military standards used in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The shapes are commonly associated with the Himalayas. The sun and moon now appear as plain white shapes, but in past versions of the flag, both actually had eyes, noses, and mouths representing dynasties. Yes, Nepal’s flag once literally had faces. These were removed as part of a new constitution introduced on December 16, 1962. The famous double-pennant shape remained.

This content was created with the help of AI.