A Roman emperor. A bloody battle. While most color words have their origins in long lists of dusty etymological explanations, the origin of the word magenta, a purplish-pink hue, is worthy of a summer blockbuster.

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 4^th 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.

Shortly afterward, a new type of purplish-pink dye, made from coal tar, was discovered. The color, originally called fuchsine after the dye used to create it, was soon renamed magenta. While some suspect it was called magenta after the red-colored uniforms worn by the French troops, many experts believe it was renamed because the color was reminiscent of the blood-stained battlefield.

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