So this right here is the Flag of France.
If there was a flag contest for the number of other flags
inspired or just ripped off of it,
then this thing would be in definite first place.
Just look at all these other attempts.
Some are cool, and others just kind of look
like knockoff brand versions of mountain lightning.
You can't even tell the difference between half
of these other flags.
But France, you recognize because it's the original--
and because maybe it's been all over your Facebook feed
in the last few months.
So where did it come from, and why
do we instantly think of France when we see it,
and we don't instantly think of Chad when we see this
or Romania when we see this.
Blue, white, and red are colors that
are generally associated with republicanism or democracy.
The French flag wasn't the first that used them
and neither was the United States.
Technically, the Dutch used this similar-ish flag
starting in 1572 early on into a rebellion
against their Spanish overlords.
The French flag looks like this when it's flipped on its side.
But France isn't one for cheap knock offs,
and there's another reason to be had other
than ripping off the Dutch.
When France exploded into revolution in 1789,
the revolutionaries couldn't be seen using the same flag
as their royal oppressors.
The number one rule of rebellions, or revolutions,
is to not use a flag that looks similar to your enemies.
Looking right at you, Confederate States of America.
So with that in mind, the flag of pre-revolutionary France
looked like this.
The color of white that you see was very closely
linked with the monarchy in France,
dating back to Joan of Arc.
This teenage freedom fighter, nicknamed the maid,
charged into battle against the English
with a white flag and a picture of Jesus blazoned on its side.
Because everybody loves Joan of Arc as probably,
probably the most bad ass teenage girl
of all time, the color of white began getting
used a lot more in France.
French Protestants also really like white and used the color
to represent themselves a lot.
And then this guy, Henry IV, became the king.
He was a Protestant but converted to Catholicism
and thought that white was a really good color
to unite the two faiths inside the country.
And holy hell, did the French really dig white.
Look at paintings of the French army before the revolution,
and you see white everywhere.
The soldiers are even wore white uniforms.
Imagine how hard that must have been
to keep clean marching around.
But nope, sorry pal, still got to wear white,
even when it's raining and muddy outside, because it's awesome.
There's a bunch of flags that were
used in France before the white takeover,
like this one, and this one, and this one.
But when the Bourbon family took power in 1589,
after the previous Valois family,
they whitewashed the historic blue color
associated with French flags and turned them into their white.
Very unfortunately for the Bourbon family,
however, they were still the kings of France in 1789
when the revolution began.
The revolutionaries initially sought inspiration
for their symbols from the flag of Paris, a stripe of blue
and a stripe of red.
But they couldn't just completely steal that idea
and make the flag of Paris the flag
of all of France, so the idea was
born to place the historic white color, symbol of the monarchy,
into the middle being crushed by the two sides of Paris.
This symbol placed the color of monarchy
into submission under the people.
But this familiar version wasn't the first edition
of the French flag, this was.
It stayed that way for four years,
from 1790 until 1794, when this fashionista
had the idea of switching the blue and white colors.
He painted all of this stuff, though,
so maybe he was on to something.
Anyway, from 1794 on, this flag was the official flag
of the French Republic, and Napoleon liked it just as much,
so he kept it around after he took over.
Napoleon just marauding around Europe,
spreading the flag's design into the places he conquered,
like here, here, here, here, here, here, here,
here, and here.
People didn't really like Napoleon's marauding, though,
or his spread of three color flag designs,
so everybody relevant in the world
basically ganged up on him and kicked him out of France
in 1814.
After they did that, they thought
that the best idea possible for France,
after 26 years of chaotic revolution,
was to bring back these guys, the Bourbons.
And with them came back the old white flag
that we all know and love.
Except people in France didn't like that.
And Napoleon really didn't like that.
So he escaped from his time out chair,
riled up the French people, and became the emperor again.
The Bourbons ran away with their flag
after just a few months being kings again.
The tricolor became the national flag again,
and the French were happy.
But everybody ganged up on Napoleon again, and beat him
down pretty quickly, this time sending him
to a really far away island in the middle of nowhere,
right here.
Thinking that they were safe from that shenanigans the word
Bourbons came back to France again in 1815 and, once again,
forced the white flag on the people of France.
This was a Bourbon restoration flag.
Yep, it's a plain and simple white flag.
For 15 years until 1830, France was literally
known around the world as that country whose flag
is a plain white rectangle.
But that nonsense changed after the July revolution
in 1830, when the most down-to-earth sounding guy,
Louis-Philippe, the citizen king,
took power and restored the tricolor.
Ever since that date in 1830, the tricolor
has remained the flag of France, although it wasn't always
so certain.
In 1848, socialist revolutionaries
demanded that the flag be changed to a plain red flag,
but that failed when this bad ass Frenchman said to them,
the tricolor has toured the world with a republic
and the empire with your freedoms and your glory,
and the red flag was that around the Champ de Mars
dragged in the people's blood.
And then, after the last Bonaparte Emperor, Napoleon
III, was overthrown in 1870, a royalist majority
was elected to the National Assembly of the newly found
French third republic.
The assembly offered the throne to this dude,
named Henri, Comte de Chambord.
He was a pretender, with a legitimate claim to the throne,
and he really could have been he wanted to.
But he absolutely insisted that he would only
accept the throne if the tricolor was
replaced with a Bourbon white flag again.
Considering that to be pretty ridiculous,
since France had already changed lives six times in the last 80
years, and because the people clearly love the tricolor more,
the assembly told him to get lost.
Since Henry was adamant about it and wouldn't dropped the issue,
he never got to be king, and the tricolor
has remained intact ever since.
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This was Real Life Lore.