Wikipedia had wrong Vatican flag for years – now incorrect flags are everywhere
This feels like the author jumped to the conclusion that Wikipedia was at fault because it's a common enough story and sounded good, but it doesn't add up. See addaon's comment for an explanation of why heraldry here isn't as cut-and-dry as we're used to for, say, the US flag.<p>But even aside from that, the author neglected to check the full edit history on the Wikipedia file: the <i>very first</i> version of the flag (25 Nov 2005) had the red tiara that the article decries, citing Open Clip Art as the source [0]. That suggests the "wrong" version was already highly circulated before Wikipedia got the image.<p>The caption on the main photo goes so far as to suggest that the Vatican itself is using Wikipedia as a source for printing its flags. Indeed, the UN has a photo of the flag of the Vatican shortly after it was raised there in 2015, and <i>that flag has the red tiara</i> [1]. It's hard to imagine the flag flown at the UN being done as a rush job from a Wikipedia article.<p>It's a cute story, but it looks like the simpler truth is that the Vatican doesn't particularly care about the coloring of the tiara.<p>EDIT: Kudos to zokier for finding a Twitter thread with more examples [2]. Apparently the flag <i>taken to the moon and back by Apollo 11</i> had the red tiara.<p>[0] <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of_the_Vatican_City.svg&offset=&limit=250" rel="nofollow">https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Flag_of...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://dam.media.un.org/asset-management/2AM9LO46AB5A?FR_=1&W=1920&H=947" rel="nofollow">https://dam.media.un.org/asset-management/2AM9LO46AB5A?FR_=1...</a><p>[2] zokier's comment: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36118232" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36118232</a>