Magenta is the name of a town in northwestern Italy. While no one knows for sure, historians speculate the town may have been named for Marcus Maxentius, a Roman general—and later an emperor—who had his headquarters there in the 4th century.

Fast forward about 1500 years. In 1859, during the Second Italian War of Independence, French and Italian forces defeated the Austrians at Magenta. It was a particularly gory clash—so bloody that more than seven thousand men died were buried in one mass grave.

Fuchsine Is Renamed Magenta

Shortly afterward, a new type of purplish-pink dye, made from coal tar, was discovered. The color, originally called fuchsine (or fuchsia) after the dye used to create it, was soon renamed magenta. While some suspected it was called magenta after the red-colored uniforms worn by the French troops, according to Philip Ball, Bright Earth, Art and the Invention of Colour it was renamed to celebrate the victory of the French army at the Battle of Magenta on June 4, 1859, near the Italian city of that name.