Peace Out

History of the peace sign

What Americans, as well as most others in the world, see as the "Peace-sign" actually came from Great Britain. This is also true for the "V for victory" hand sign, that today often means "Peace.".

At the end of World War Two, countries began to realign into a new world order. As the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union morphed into the Cold War, concern over nuclear weapons became a hot topic among the British population. Realizing that allowing US Bombers and Ballistic Missiles, with nuclear bombs, to be stationed in Great Britain would make it a target in a nuclear war between the US and Soviet Union, a Nuclear Disarmament Campaign began among the people in Great Britain.

Protests against these weapons of mass destruction began to swell throughout Great Britain. Realizing an easily recognized symbol would help the movement, British artist Gerald Holtom brought a sketch to a planning session in Twickenham, England. His first iteration was a square superimposed over a circle that contained a cross.

During discussions with a group in London centered on the cross not relaying the group's message, perhaps even being misconstrued as a Crusader symbol. A suggestion was made to alter the arms of the cross.

Holtom immediately thought of a Goya painting in which a civilian has thrown up his arms in front of an enemy firing squad, in a gesture of anger and futility. Holtom rethought the concept of a world boxed in by war. He redid the sketch, using a circle representing England's road signs, and dropping the stick figure's arms downward, as if a person were experiencing despair.

Viewing the symbol of the stick figure sketch, Holtom realized this could be the perfect symbol, for it could represent two superimposed stick figures with semaphore flags: N for nuclear, and D for disarmament. This iteration was immediately adopted by the movement.

As the Cold War continued, and the "Ban the Bomb" protests were aired on world-wide news stations, the symbol crossed the ocean. Within ten years, as anti-Vietnam War sentiment began to foment in the United States, the symbol became known as "The Peace Sign."