Red Facts for Kids

This box shows the color red.

Red is the color you see on the outside edge of a rainbow. It's one of the three main primary colors, along with blue and yellow. Red light has a wavelength between 630 and 740 nanometers.

You can find red in many things around you, like some apples and most raspberries. It's also the color of blood and bright cherries.

Red is often used to show things that are wrong, very important, or dangerous. Think of a stop sign or a warning light – they are usually red to tell you to stop or be careful!

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Bulls, like dogs and many other animals, cannot see the color red. They charge the matador's cape because it moves, not because of its color.
Sunsets and sunrises often look red because of how light scatters in the air.
The artist Titian used special red paints to make the robes in this painting look very bright.
Only about 1 to 2% of people in the world have natural red hair.
Fashion model Magdalena Frackowiak at Paris Fashion Week (Fall 2011).
The cardinal bird is named after the red robes worn by high-ranking church leaders called cardinals.
Pink is a lighter shade of red. These are cherry blossoms in Tsutsujigaoka Park, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.
Vermilion is a red color that's a bit more orange than scarlet. This is sindoor, a red powder used in India. Some Hindu women wear a stripe of sindoor in their hair to show they are married.
Ruby is the color of a cut and shiny ruby gemstone.
In an old color wheel from 1708, red, yellow, and blue were considered primary colors. Red and yellow make orange, and red and blue make violet.
In modern color science, red, green, and blue are the main colors of light. When mixed together, they make white light. These colors, in different amounts, create all the colors you see on your computer and TV screens.
Tiny red, green, and blue sub-pixels (seen enlarged on the left) make up the images on your computer and TV screens.
Mars looks red because of the iron oxide (rust) on its surface.
Mira, a red giant star.
An artist's idea of a red dwarf, which is a small, cool star that looks red because of its temperature.
Red ochre cliffs near Roussillon in France. Red ochre is a type of clay with a red tint. It was one of the first colors used by humans in ancient cave paintings.
Vermilion pigment, made from a mineral called cinnabar. This color was used in the paintings of Pompeii and in Chinese lacquerware from the Song dynasty.
Even though it has yellowish-green flowers, the roots of the Rubia tinctorum, or madder plant, were used to make the most common red dye for a long time, until the 1800s.
Red lead, also known as minium, has been used since ancient Greek times. The Romans made it by heating white lead paint. It was often used in the Middle Ages to decorate old books.
Alizarin was the first man-made red dye, created in Germany in 1868. It was like the dye from the madder plant but cheaper and lasted longer. After it was invented, people stopped making natural dyes from madder plants.
Red blood cells on an agar plate. Blood looks red because of the iron inside the blood cells.
An Irish setter dog, known for its red coat.
A pair of European red foxes.
The European robin or robin redbreast.
Bison painted with red ochre in the Cave of Altamira, Spain, from about 36,000 BC.
An image of a human hand made with red ochre in Pech Merle cave, France (about 25,000 BC).
The Prince of Lilies, a fresco from the Bronze Age Palace of Minos at Knossos on Crete.
A Roman wall painting showing a dye shop in Pompeii (40 BC).
Roman Catholic Popes wear red as a symbol of the blood of Christ. This is Pope Innocent III, around 1219.
Red was the traditional color for martyrs (people who died for their beliefs). This is a Russian painting of Saint George from the 14th century.
The color of royalty - A portrait of Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor, from the Netherlands (14th century).
A Persian Red carpet texture.
The young Queen Elizabeth I (around 1563).
The Wedding Dance (1566), by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Woman with a wine glass, by Johannes Vermeer (1659–60).
Textiles dyed red from the Paracas culture of Peru (around 200 BC), now in the British Museum.
A feather headdress from the Aztec people of Mexico and Central America, dyed with cochineal.
A person from Central America collecting cochineal insects from a cactus to make red dye (1777).
A barricade with a red flag on Rue Souffot during the 1848 French Revolution.
The red flag of the Bolsheviks, painted by Boris Kustodiev (1920).
The Chinese Honour Guard in Beijing, 2007.
Robert Gibb's 1881 painting, The Thin Red Line, showing a famous moment at the Battle of Balaclava (1854). A line of Scottish soldiers bravely fought off a Russian cavalry attack. The name became a symbol of courage.
The red poppy flower is worn on Remembrance Day in many countries to remember soldiers who died in the First World War.
Sheet music for "At the Devil's Ball", by Irving Berlin, United States, 1915.
A Shinto torii gate at Itsukushima, Japan.
Buddhist monks in Tibet.
In Hinduism, red is linked to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and beauty.
Red flags in a celebration of Muharram in Iran.
An officer and soldier of the British Army, 1815.
The bright red uniform of the National Guards Unit of Bulgaria.
Musicians of the United States Marine Corps Band.
An officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The Brazilian Marine Corps wears a dress uniform called A Garança.
Soldiers of the Rajput Regiment of the Indian Army.
An ancient Roman mosaic showing the winner of a chariot race, wearing the colors of the red team.
Both the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox baseball teams wear red.
In martial arts, a red belt shows a high level of skill, often second only to a black belt.
An Alfa Romeo Sports Racing car in 1977, painted Rosso Corsa, which means "racing red." This was the traditional racing color for Italy from the 1920s to the late 1960s.

Red facts for kids

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