The Red Ensign or "Red Duster" is a flag that originated in the early 17th century as an English ensign flown by the Royal Navy and later specifically by British Merchant Seamen (The British Merchant Navy). The precise date of its first appearance is not known, but surviving receipts indicate that the Navy was paying to have such flags sewn during the 1620s. It is currently used as the civil ensign of the United Kingdom.
Read more about Red Ensign: History, Australia, Bermuda, Canada, India, Isle of Man, Newfoundland, New Zealand, South Africa, The Scout Association, Taunton, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States
Famous quotes containing the words red and/or ensign:
“One will meet, for example, the virtual assumption that what is relative to thought cannot be real. But why not, exactly? Red is relative to sight, but the fact that this or that is in that relation to vision that we call being red is not itself relative to sight; it is a real fact.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
A lightning before death: O, how may I
Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife!
Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:
Thou art not conquered; beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)