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Today Is ‘Kiss A Ginger Day’ – Time To Show Your Favourite Redhead Some Love

Today Is ‘Kiss A Ginger Day’ – Time To Show Your Favourite Redhead Some Love

It’s time we showed our favourite gingers how much we appreciate them

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

Gingers have it pretty tough sometimes. They have done for centuries to be fair. Long before South Park said that gingers have no souls they were persecuted for their red hair.

Jesus Christ's betrayer Judas was often portrayed in medieval paintings as a redhead, and the Christian scholar St Jerome once wrote a letter about raising daughters that said: "Do not dye her hair red and thereby presage for her the fires of hell."

It was also seen as an indicator of witchcraft or general untrustworthiness, while some people throughout history believed that the fat of a red haired man could be used to make poison, or the blood of a ginger to turn copper to gold, which is bizarre to say the least.

Christina Hendricks.
PA

Anyway, we obviously know that this nonsense is not true in this day and age, but gingers still have it tough in today's society too. A few years back some kids in America were beaten and bloodied after students at one school decided to observe 'Kick A Ginger Kid' day.

Obviously it's not a real holiday, but that didn't stop anyone unlucky enough to have red hair at Melrose Veterans Memorial School in Massachusetts, USA from taking a hiding on 20 November.

Now though, the flame-haired masses are fighting back. Today, 12 January, is 'Kiss A Ginger Day'.

Ed Sheeran.
PA

The unofficial holiday was started in 2009 on Facebook by Derek Forgie who was sick of being bullied and victimised for his red locks and decided to take some positive action.

Less than two percent of the world's population is ginger - if you discount anyone who dyes their hair. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Scotland and Ireland lead the way for the most gingers per head.

It is a result of a genetic mutation (not the cool kind, or the bad kind) in one specific gene - MC1R (known as the 'ginger gene') is responsible for the red hair, freckles, and pale skin of all of your favourite redheads.

Karen Gillan.
PA

If both parents carry the gene there is a good chance their kids will be ginger even if they aren't, but if both parents are ginger there is an almost 100 percent chance the kids will be red headed.

They may have a hard time, but the biggest selling colour of women's hair dye on the planet is red, meaning that more and more people are turning ginger by choice.

So on Kiss a Ginger Day, celebrate that special redhead in your life (no kicking, please). And if you ever want to see conclusive proof that gingers have souls, this guy has got you covered.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: UK News, Ginger hair, Funny, Interesting, UK Entertainment