40 Fun Facts About Red

Which background colour did American stop signs carry from 1924 to 1954, before the switch that drivers know today?

Yellow stop signs with a red or black legend ruled American roads for thirty years because fade-resistant red materials were not available. The red octagon with white lettering dates only from the 1954 change.

The Moscow–Washington hotline, made a priority by the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, first ran on which equipment?

Teleprinters carried the first hotline messages, and no red phones were ever used: the famous 'red telephone' is a popular-culture invention. Fax machines took over in 1986.

Which colour did M&M's add in 1976 to replace red, pulled over a scare about a dye the sweets never used?

Orange joined the mix in 1976 because the public was wary of any red-dyed food after Red Dyes No. 2 and No. 4 were judged carcinogenic, even though M&M's used Red Dye No. 40. Red came back in 1987.

Britain's 1865 'Red Flag Act' made a walker, usually a boy, go how far ahead of every steam road vehicle?

60 yards ahead, carrying a red flag, was the Locomotives Act's warning system, and the same Act capped road locomotives at 4 mph in the country and 2 mph in towns. The flag rule was repealed in 1878.

Why is a matador's muleta traditionally dyed a colour that bulls, being dichromatic, cannot actually make out?

To hide bloodstains, and for tradition, is why the muleta stays red even though bulls are dichromatic and cannot discern the colour of the cape or the cloth.

'Redshirt', for a character introduced only to be killed, comes from doomed security crew on which 1960s TV series?

Star Trek's red-uniformed security officers and engineers died so often on away missions that 'redshirt' became shorthand for a disposable character. The term grew out of fan discussion of the 1966–1969 series.

Which London building got the world's first traffic signal in 1868, a gas lamp showing red or green that soon exploded?

Parliament's gas-lit signal went up in December 1868 to spare police officers from directing traffic, and it exploded on 2 January 1869 and was taken down.

Which national football team has used Manchester United's nickname since 1906, thanks to the colour of its jerseys?

Belgium's national side has been the Red Devils since 1906, a nickname earned by their red jerseys, and the team's fan club goes by the name '1895'.

Which pigment, locked to shell proteins in a live lobster, is freed by cooking and turns the animal red?

Astaxanthin is the same pigment that colours flamingos and salmon, all of which get it from the algae and crustaceans they eat. In a live lobster it stays bound to shell protein until heat unwinds that protein.

Which pigment makes tomatoes red and also colours watermelon, pink grapefruit and baked beans?

Lycopene takes its name from Lycopersicon, a former genus name for the tomato, and it is a carotenoid hydrocarbon found in red fruits and vegetables.

Which muscle protein, with a higher affinity for oxygen than hemoglobin, carries the pigments that colour red meat?

Myoglobin, not leftover blood, is why meat is red: its hemes are the pigments responsible, and John Kendrew shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for working out its structure.

What coats the striking strip of a safety match box, deliberately kept apart from the match head?

Red phosphorus on a separate striking surface was the safety match's big innovation, patented by Gustaf Erik Pasch, replacing the phosphorus once put on the match heads themselves.

The juice of which vegetable, purple in the pot, works as a homemade pH indicator that turns pink with vinegar?

Red cabbage juice changes colour with acidity, which is why cooks add vinegar or acidic fruit to the pot to keep the leaves from turning blue.

Which kind of star makes up perhaps three-quarters of the Milky Way, yet not one is visible to the naked eye?

Red dwarfs are by far the most common fusing stars in the Sun's neighbourhood, but they are so small and dim that every one of them needs a telescope.

Ruby, usually pinker than the garnet it is often confused with, is the traditional birthstone for which month?

July's birthstone is the ruby, which is usually pinker than garnet, though some rhodolite garnets come close enough to be mistaken for it.

Since which US presidential election has 'red state' consistently meant one that votes Republican?

2000 was the election after which red stuck to the Republicans and blue to the Democrats, and states that swing between the two are now called purple states.

Jeremy Irons wore the first on-screen red ribbon at the 1991 Tony Awards in solidarity with people living with what?

HIV/AIDS awareness is what the red ribbon was created for in 1991 by the New York-based Visual AIDS Artists Caucus, and it is also used for drug-abuse and drunk-driving prevention.

The Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris is best known as the birthplace of the modern form of which dance?

The can-can's modern form was born at the Moulin Rouge, co-founded in 1889 by Charles Zidler and Joseph Oller on the Boulevard de Clichy in the Pigalle district; the name means 'Red Mill', for the landmark windmill on its roof.

Red Nose Day raises money for which British charity, founded by Richard Curtis and Lenny Henry in 1985?

Comic Relief was set up in response to the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia, with the idea that British comedians would make the public laugh while raising money, and its Red Nose Day telethon is held each March.

Which singer wrote 'The Lady in Red' about his wife Diane, who used to watch him perform at his parents' hotel?

Chris de Burgh released 'The Lady in Red' in June 1986 as the second single from his album Into the Light, and it reached number one in several countries and the top three in the United States.

The name 'Wars of the Roses', for the fight between Lancaster's red rose and York's white, was coined in which century?

The 19th century coined 'the Wars of the Roses': the opposition of the two roses was a romantic invention after the fact, and Tudor poets such as Shakespeare gave the conflict its popular image.

Which London Underground line, printed in red on the Tube map, is the network's longest at 46 miles?

The Central line serves 49 stations over its 46 miles, which makes it the longest line on the Underground, and the Tube map prints it in red.

In motor racing, what does a solid red flag, sometimes replaced by lights around the circuit, tell the drivers?

The session is halted under a solid red flag because conditions are too dangerous to continue, whereas the chequered flag signals the end of practice, qualifying or the race itself.

Which Austrian skydiver rode a helium balloon 39 km over New Mexico in 2012 and then jumped in a pressure suit?

Felix Baumgartner opened his parachute after 4 minutes and 19 seconds of free fall, well short of the five to six minutes planned for the Red Bull Stratos jump on 14 October 2012.

In Stephen King's novella, Ellis 'Red' Redding, played on film by Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption, is what?

Irish-American is how the novella describes Ellis 'Red' Redding, a 57-year-old inmate of Shawshank State Prison in Maine who narrates the story that Freeman's 1994 performance made famous.

Which author created Clifford the Big Red Dog from his childhood wish for a dog the size of a horse?

Norman Bridwell published the first Clifford book in 1963, and the series ran to 91 books, the last two released after his death in 2014.

Which Austrian entrepreneur turned the Thai tonic Krating Daeng into Red Bull after claiming it cured his jet lag?

Dietrich Mateschitz partnered with Krating Daeng's creator Chaleo Yoovidhya and reformulated the drink for Western tastes, carbonating it for the first time.

Which 1973 Triple Crown winner, who set the time record in all three races, was known to his stable as 'Big Red'?

Secretariat, the ninth American Triple Crown winner, set the fastest time in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont in 1973, and as of 2026 all three records still stand.

Which coach lit a victory cigar on the Boston Celtics bench whenever he judged a game already won?

Red Auerbach popularized the victory cigar, a habit that became a Boston tradition, and when a press conference raised his future he puffed on his trademark cigar and said, 'I'm not going anywhere.'

Which bird of prey was reintroduced to Buckinghamshire in 1989, with four Swedish and one Welsh bird released?

Red kites from that release have thrived so well that in Marlow, near the Stokenchurch reintroduction site, they have swooped down to steal sandwiches from people in a park.

Which jet did the RAF's Red Arrows switch to in late 1979, when they gave up the Folland Gnat?

The BAE Hawk replaced the Gnats the team had inherited for its first display in May 1965, and in October 2022 the Red Arrows moved their base from RAF Scampton to RAF Waddington.

Which architect of Battersea Power Station designed Britain's classic red telephone kiosk after a 1924 competition?

Giles Gilbert Scott's design was chosen by the Fine Arts Commission over entries from the Post Office and the Birmingham Civic Society, and his K3 of 1929 was built in reinforced concrete for nationwide use.

What explains most British soldiers wearing red coats after the Restoration of 1660, rather than any deliberate policy?

The dye was cheap: the red coat owed more to circumstance than policy, and the madder-red uniform lasted from the mid-17th century into the 19th for most soldiers apart from artillery, rifles and light cavalry.

Which German manufacturer built the triplane that the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, made his signature aircraft?

Fokker's Dr.I triplane in all-red livery is how Richthofen is usually pictured, and the fighter wing he rose to command was nicknamed 'the Flying Circus' for the bright colours of its aircraft.

The original 'thin red line' was the 93rd Highlanders holding off Russian cavalry at which battle of 25 October 1854?

Balaclava's thin red line was about 500 men of the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders under Sir Colin Campbell, who with a few walking wounded and Guardsmen formed a line of fire against 2,500 Russian cavalry.

Which vessels have flown the Red Ensign, the flag nicknamed the 'Red Duster', since 1707?

British merchant and passenger ships have flown the Red Ensign, the civil ensign of the United Kingdom, since 1707, while the Royal Navy flies the White Ensign.

'Paint the town red' is usually traced to the Marquess of Waterford's 1837 spree in which Leicestershire market town?

Melton Mowbray's Thorpe End tollgate is where Beresford and his hunting friends arrived in the early hours of 6 April 1837, though no documented use of the phrase appears before 1883.

The term 'red tape' for bureaucracy is generally traced to the 16th-century administration of which Holy Roman Emperor?

Charles V, also King of Spain, started using red tape, or balduque, to bind documents in an effort to modernize the administration running his vast empire.

The earliest known literary red carpet is walked in Agamemnon, a tragedy of 458 BC by which Greek playwright?

Aeschylus wrote the scene nearly 2,500 years before Hollywood premieres, and his Agamemnon remains the earliest known reference in literature to walking a red carpet.

Which French novelist's 1830 book The Red and the Black follows the ambitious Julien Sorel?

Stendhal subtitled Le Rouge et le Noir 'A Chronicle of the 19th Century', and the two-volume novel is a Bildungsroman of its intelligent, ambitious hero.