Monday, January 5, 2009

The Peace Symbol





I bet you didn't know that the Peace symbol wasn't some ancient symbol used to foment peace among warring tribes and Victorian armies. Nope. It came about during the 1960's anti-war movement, and was used basically to say: UK and USA, you can't have nuclear weapons, but the Soviets can, afterall it's just for energy purposes. Sound familiar Iran?

Check out the following from Wiki:

"This symbol (☮) was originally used for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and was adopted as its badge by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Britain, and originally was used by the British nuclear disarmament movement. It was subsequently adopted as an international emblem for the 1960s anti-war movement, and was also adopted by the counterculture of the time. It was designed and completed February 21, 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist in Britain for the April 4 march planned by DAC from Trafalgar Square, London to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in England[1]. The symbol itself is a combination of the semaphoric signals for the letters "N" and "D," standing for Nuclear Disarmament. In semaphore the letter "N" is formed by a person holding two flags in an upside-down "V," and the letter "D" is formed by holding one flag pointed straight up and the other pointed straight down. These two signals imposed over each other form the shape of the peace symbol. In the first official CND version (preceded by a ceramic pin version that had straight lines, but was short lived) the spokes curved out to be wider at the edge of the circle which was white on black[2,3]."



1. "A Piece of Our Time". Time Magazine. Retrieved on 2008-04-02.
2. The CND symbol. Hugh Brock Papers. http://www.brad.ac.uk/library/special/cwlhbp.php
3. "The CND logo". Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Retrieved on 2008-04-03.