By Tim Lambert
Black
In the 13th century, Dominican friars arrived in England. They were called Blackfriars because they wore black cloaks.
The Black Death of 1348-49 killed about one-third of the population of England.
In the West, black is the colour of mourning. However, in many Asian cultures, white is the colour of mourning.
Writer Anna Sewell was born in 1820. She is famous for her book Black Beauty.
The famous film Creature from the Black Lagoon was released on 5 March 1954
The most popular colour for knickers is black.
17 August is Black Cat Appreciation Day.
Blue
In England the term ‘the blues’ was used to describe feelings of sadness as early as the 18th century, but nobody is sure why. At the end of the 19th century a type of African-American music was called the blues because it expressed sadness.
In Britain the first blue plaque (a memorial to someone famous who once lived in a certain building) was placed in 1867.
On 19 December 1955, Carl Perkins recorded his song ‘Blue Suede Shoes’; Elvis Presley made his version in 1956.
The TV show Blue Peter was first broadcast on 16 October 1958.
Brown
Our word bear is derived from an old word meaning ‘the brown one’.
From the 16th century to the early 20th century, Egyptian mummies were ground up and used to make a pigment for paint. It was called mummy brown.
Peanuts, the famous cartoon with Charlie Brown and Snoopy, was first published on 2 October 1950.
2 February is National Brown Dog Day.
Green
The colour green, since it’s the colour of foliage, naturally represents nature. In the 20th century, it became associated with Environmentalism. Green also means inexperienced because of its association with fresh or unripe fruit and vegetables.
Greenland was named by Erik the Red. He hoped the name would attract settlers to the island.
In 1855, the first post boxes in England were installed in London. Originally, they were painted green. From 1874, they were painted red. to make them more visible.
Why do we associate green with envy? The Ancient Greeks believed the body had four humours. If you had too much of one, yellow bile, you would become jealous. You would also have a yellowish-green complexion.
Grey
In the Middle Ages, grey was associated with poverty because the poor could not afford dyes and had to wear undyed, grey clothes.
The first Franciscan friars arrived in England on 10 September 1224. They were called Grey Friars because of the colour of their costumes.
Orange
Orange was once the name of a fruit. The colour was called yellow-red, but people eventually began to call it after the fruit.
Early carrots were not orange. They were purple, yellow or red! Orange carrots were grown by the 16th century and they first became popular in England during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign.
Pink
The word pink was originally the name of a flower, Dianthus. In the 17th century, it came to mean the colour of the flower.
It’s a myth that pink was originally a boy’s colour and blue was a girl’s colour. Before the 20th century, pink could be a boy’s colour or a girl’s colour. But pink was once a sign of wealth because pink was expensive. With the Industrial Revolution, people invented synthetic dyes, and pink dye became cheaper. In the early 20th century, pink became definitely a girls’ colour, but nobody really knows why.
Pink Floyd released their first song, “Arnold Layne,” in 1965.
23 June is National Pink Day.
Purple
For millennia, purple was associated with royalty because it was such an expensive dye.
Some Roman women ran businesses. In the New Testament, there is a woman named Lydia who sold purple cloth.
William Henry Perkin was born in 1838. He invented the first artificial dye (purple).
Deep Purple released their first song, “Hush,” in 1968.
Red
In the past red was an expensive dye and red clothes were a status symbol.
The most common name for pubs in Britain is the Red Lion.
English king William Rufus was crowned on 26 September 1087. It’s a myth that he was called Rufus because he had red hair. He actually had blonde hair but he had a reddish complexion.
In Britain, in the 19th century, postmen were called robins because they wore red jackets.
The short story, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe was published in 1842.
In 1863 Jean Henri Dunant founded the Red Cross. The British Red Cross was founded in 1870. The American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton in 1881.
On 21 April 1918 Baron von Richthofen, AKA The Red Baron, was shot and killed. It’s not certain who shot him but it probably wasn’t Snoopy.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created in 1939 by Robert L. May.
In the Middle Ages, saint’s days were marked in red on calendars. So they were red-letter days.
Official documents were bound with red tape, which is why we say ‘red tape’.
5 November is National Love Your Red Hair Day.
28 November is Red Planet Day.
Scarlet
Scarlet was once the name of an expensive wool cloth but because it was so often dyed bright red, the word scarlet came to mean the colour.
The TV puppet show Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was first broacast in Britain in 1967.
White
On 10 February 1840, Queen Victoria married her cousin Albert. Victoria wanted to help the British lace industry, which was having a hard time. So she wanted to wear a dress with lots of lace on it. She was advised that a white dress would be the best to show off the lace. Because the queen wore a white wedding dress, it became the fashion for brides to wear white. Wearing a white dress had nothing to do with virginity.
Lily-livered means cowardly. People once believed that your passions came from your liver. If you were lily-livered, your liver was white (because it did not contain blood). So you were a coward.
During the First World War, in Britain, there was a campaign by some women to shame men who were not in uniform by giving them white feathers in the street. The suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was prominent in the movement.
The white flag has been used to surrender since at least 69 AD, probably because it’s easy to distinguish on a battlefield.
The cornerstone of the White House was laid on 13 October 1792.
The White Sea is an inlet of the Arctic Ocean off Northwest Russia.
4 August is National White Wine Day.
Yellow
In 1269, King Louis IX of France decreed that all Jews must wear a yellow badge in public. In 1941, the Nazis ordered Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing.
By the mid-19th century in the USA, yellow was associated with cowardice but nobody knows why.
Yellow lines first appeared on British roads on 16 June 1958.
The song Yellow Submarine by the Beatles was released in 1966. The cartoon was released in 1968.
Colour TV
In 1951, CBS made the first-ever colour TV broadcast on the East Coast of the USA
In 1967, colour television began in Britain. The Wimbledon Tennis Championships were broadcast in colour on BBC2. BBC 1 and ITV began broadcasting in colour in 1969.
In 1975, colour TV broadcasting began in Australia.
Colour Related Facts
Scientist John Dalton was born in September 1766. He investigated colour blindness. For a time, it was called Daltonism after him.
A blacksmith made things of iron, a whitesmith made things of tin or pewter, and a brownsmith made things of brass or bronze.
The human eye can distinguish about 10 million different colours.
Last revised 2026