Why are there no purple flags? I Explore the world with Verum

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]I have a question for you.

[00:00:02]Look at the flags of the world.

[00:00:04]Red, blue, green, [music] yellow, white, black. Not one of them is purple.

[00:00:12]Nearly 200 countries, hundreds of flags, thousands of years of history, but not one [music] purple.

[00:00:21]Why?

[00:00:23]This little creature knows the answer.

[00:00:27]For thousands of years, purple was not just a color. It was power. It was royalty, and it was wealth.

[00:00:35]Roman emperors wore it.

[00:00:37]>> [music] >> Kings wore it. High priests wore it.

[00:00:41]Because purple was more expensive than gold.

[00:00:45]It was made from snails.

[00:00:48]To make just 1 g of purple dye, [music] you needed more than 10,000 snails.

[00:00:56]And that 1 g cost three times its weight in gold.

[00:01:02]This is Felix's Wiggly Room.

[00:01:05]We call it the scary place of creepy crawlies.

[00:01:09]Felix, I need the snail.

[00:01:12]You're not going to kill my snail, are you?

[00:01:15]Felix, where are you?

[00:01:17]I just need to show him to someone briefly.

[00:01:21]This is a murex sea snail from the Mediterranean Sea near an ancient city, which is now called [music] Lebanon.

[00:01:31]Inside the snail is a milky liquid.

[00:01:35]If you leave it in sunlight, something extraordinary happens.

[00:01:40]White changes to yellow-green, to red, to purple.

[00:01:46]The most beautiful purple the world has ever seen.

[00:01:49]But to make 1 g, we need 10,000 snails.

[00:01:54]Okay, he is going back in his tank right now.

[00:01:57]>> [music] >> Thank you, Felix. And it is the Wiggly Room, not the scary place of creepy crawlies.

[00:02:05]It is absolutely the scary place of creepy crawlies.

[00:02:09]Most flags were designed between the 1200s and the 1800s. Red was easy, blue was easy, green, yellow, white, black, all easy. But purple?

[00:02:22]>> [music] >> Impossible.

[00:02:24]Even the richest kingdoms couldn't afford enough purple fabric for a flag.

[00:02:29]So, purple stayed on the robes of emperors, not on the flags of nations.

[00:02:36]In 1856, an 18-year-old student named William Perkin was trying to make medicine for malaria.

[00:02:45]He failed. But while failing, he accidentally created the world's first synthetic purple dye.

[00:02:53]Suddenly, purple was cheap, and it was available everywhere.

[00:02:58]But it was too late because every country had already chosen its flag. The colors were locked, and nobody went back to add purple.

[00:03:08]One tiny snail, 10,000 lives, three times its weight in gold. That is why there are no purple flags.

[00:03:17]Color is not just color. It is chemistry. It is history. And it is power.

[00:03:23]>> [music] >> And sometimes, it is 10,000 snails.

[00:03:27]I'm Verum, and this has been explore the world with Verum.

[00:03:32]Next time, why do some countries drive on the left [music] and some on the right? And is there a right way at all?

[00:03:39]See you soon.