The WikiPedia page [1] has much more information and probably a better answer.<p>Also a timeline with different flags through out the years [2].<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Europe" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Europe</a><p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Europe#Timeline_of_Flag_proposals" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Europe#Timeline_of_Fla...</a>
What kind of time-cube tier crap is this? It's hardly fit for hackernews, is it, this rant about weird flag conspiracies and Eurocrats and Cromaggnons...<p>Read more about its history, how it was adopted, unsuccessful proposals, etc: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Europe" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Europe</a>
The article repeatedly talks about “Eurocrats”. This is a combat term used by Eurosceptics but certainly not a term anyone would use who wants to write a neutral article.<p>Whenever someone writes “Eurocrats” it’s a good idea to stop reading if you want unbiased information.
The reason is, apparently, nothing. There are some weird conspiracies that people take too far about this and that but nobody ever declared any reason for 12. It's like reading a high school literature interpretation of Moby Dick out there.
I have no idea why he thinks that the 12 showed up because that is how many periods a woman has rather than how many full moons there are on average. Not that these are unconnected.<p>As <a href="https://qz.com/1706398/the-average-menstrual-cycle-is-not-28-days/" rel="nofollow">https://qz.com/1706398/the-average-menstrual-cycle-is-not-28...</a> points out, the average woman's menstrual cycle is 29.3 days. The length of a lunar cycle is 29.5 days.<p>That they are so close is unlikely to be coincidence. In fact a close-knit group of women in primitive conditions will synchronize their cycles to each other and then the group synchronizes to the Moon. An evolutionary explanation can be found in the fact that predators can smell the blood from menstruation. Therefore there is a real advantage to having women do this all together, when the moon's light makes defending them easier.<p>It would be more convenient still if women didn't menstruate. However periods seem to have evolved when primates lived in trees. There was no barrier to this since smell is less important for arboreal animals than ground dwelling ones. And once evolved, it is hard for it to unevolve.<p>A side note of evolutionary speculation. Our arboreal ancestry seems to have been when primates lost most of their sense of smell. However in temperate zones, smell is very important for finding food under snow. Is it a coincidence that there are only two species of primates that live in the temperate zone? (Japanese snow macaques are on an island with less competition, and <i>homo sapiens</i> is clearly a special case in a lot of ways.)
"Pleasant to the Eye"<p>Probably much the same reason the US flag is red, white, blue rather than black, green, orange.<p>There is a lot of artistic expertise in flags, just as there is in company logos. What makes the Honda 'H' different from the Hyundai 'H'?
From WP:<p>Against the blue sky of the Western world, the stars symbolise the peoples of Europe in a form of a circle, a sign of union. Their number is invariably twelve, the figure twelve being the symbol of perfection and entirety.<p>— Council of Europe. Paris, 7–9 December 1955.
> Where’s the conspiracy?<p>Sigh... I feel like I read an article about chemtrails. Author concluded it's a Eurocratic-Catholic-Coptic-Jewish-Canaanite-CroMagnon conspiracy. The dismissive or passive aggressive remarks he drops every 2 sentences don't do the article any favors either.<p>12 is a number that kept appearing throughout history, probably starting with the 12 months in a year we've had since the ancient Sumerian calendar and the wider adoption of the duodecimal system. It had meaning to the ancient Greeks, Hindus, Christians, Norsemen, Chinese, Muslims, Jews, etc.<p>It's fitting that the symbolism is still appealing in modern times, in addition to the EEC actually having 12 members when the flag was adopted.
It's not true that it was never 12 countries.<p>On the contrary, while the flag existed before, it really became the EC flag in 1986 when the number of member countries was... 12.