What color were Dorothy’s ruby slippers originally in “The Wizard of Oz” books?

Everyone knows the dazzling ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz." Nearly 90 years later, it's practically a celebrity in its own right. The shoes that journeyed down the yellow brick road have spawned countless replicas, Halloween costumes... and even museum heists. But ruby isn't what author L. Frank Baum had in mind. What color were the slippers that carried Dorothy home in the original book?

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The answer is: Silver

Dorothy's famous footwear was actually silver in L. Frank Baum's original 1900 novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." But MGM got their hands on a shiny new Technicolor camera system in 1939, and they wanted to show it off like a kid with a new box of crayons.

Technicolor was Hollywood's coolest toy. It could capture bold, vivid colors in a way that made everything look like a candy store exploded on screen. The studio's costume designer, Adrian Adolph Greenburg (but you can just call him Adrian), realized silver shoes would look about as exciting as wet newspaper on their fancy color film. Red, though? Red would pop like fireworks against that yellow brick road.

Several pairs were made for the movie, each covered in thousands of tiny sequins that sparkled like crazy under the studio lights. The shoes became such a sensation that pairs have been stolen, fought over, and traded like precious gems. Just last December, the pair that was famously swiped from a Minnesota museum (and recovered by the FBI after a wild 13-year hunt) sold at auction for a jaw-dropping $28 million.

Those silver shoes from the book might have had magic powers, but these ruby slippers pulled off an even better trick. They transformed from a simple costume change into Hollywood's most spellbinding (and expensive) piece of movie history.