History
More generally "red carpet treatment" and "rolling out the red carpet", refer to any special efforts made in the interests of hospitality.
The earliest known reference to walking a red carpet in literature is in the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus, written in 458 BC. When the title character returns from Troy, he is greeted by his vengeful wife Clytemnestra who offers him a red path to walk upon:
"Now my beloved, step down from your chariot, and let not your foot, my lord, touch the Earth. Servants, let there be spread before the house he never expected to see, where Justice leads him in, a crimson path."
Agamemnon, knowing that only gods walk on such luxury, responds with trepidation:
"I am a mortal, a man; I cannot trample upon these tinted splendors without fear thrown in my path."
Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting often show rugs and carpets, patterned but with red often the main background colour, laid on the steps to a throne, or on a dais where rulers or sacred figures are placed.
A red carpet was rolled out to a river to welcome the arrival of United States president James Madison in 1821. In 1902, The New York Central Railroad used plush crimson carpets to direct people as they boarded their 20th Century Limited passenger train. This is believed to be the origin of the phrase "red-carpet treatment". Film premieres are often laid down with red carpets.
Unrolled carpets can be potentially hazardous. In 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI arrived at Edinburgh airport in strong winds for a state visit to Britain, the red carpet was removed on health and safety grounds.
Read more about this topic: Red Carpet
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)