Today is the anniversary of Thailand/Siam adapting its current flag in 1917!

Back before the current flag, Siam used a red flag with a white elephant:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Flag_of_Siam_%281855%29.svg/1280px-Flag_of_Siam_%281855%29.svg.png

Legend has it that the king, to his horror, encountered one of these flags upside-down, and to avoid that from happening again, decided to change to a flag that could not be turned upside-down. As a consequence, the following flag was adopted in 1916:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Flag_of_Siam_%281916%29.svg/1280px-Flag_of_Siam_%281916%29.svg.png

As you can see, the blue field was red back then. Allegedly it was changed to blue to show allegiance to the Entente powers during WWI, since they had blue-white-red flags. Alternatively, blue was associated with Friday, the weekday the king was born. Or alternative to that, blue just made the flag a lot prettier (which it indeed does).

Wikipedia article about the flag

Feste_the_Mad,

You know, it’s honestly kinda refreshing to see a post that elaborates this much into the history of a given flag. Feels like a nice contrast to r/vexillology.

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