"Approximately one in ten people in the UK has ginger hair, or titian hair as it is sometimes known, giving us one of the highest redhead rates in the world.

The colouring is caused by high levels of the pigment pheomelanin and relatively low ones of the darker eumelanin." 

Forget the jibes!  It was so much worse back in the day.

"There are plenty of historical examples of extreme ‘gingerism’. In 15th-century Germany, redheads were seen as witches and 45,000 were tortured and murdered.

Elsewhere, the Egyptians burned ginger people alive, and the Greeks claimed they turned into vampires when they died."

Why so much hate on redheads? I don't get it.

"Gingers" no idea where that comes from.  I think it's an East Coast or European thing.  Redheads?  HOT.  

http://pandawhale.com/search/redheads

The pejorative use of the word "ginger" and related discrimination was used to illustrate a point about racism and prejudice in the "Ginger Kids", "Le Petit Tourette", "It's a Jersey Thing" and "Fatbeard" episodes of South Park.

The term redhead has been in use since at least 1510, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair ...