Three lines inside a circle: the symbol of Peace (☮) is by far one of the most recognisable, yet not everyone knows its origin. Despite what we might think, this was not born as a symbol of peace but of the movement for nuclear disarmament in the 1960s.
History and origins: who invented it and when
The symbol was officially born on 21 February 1958 by the hand of Gerald Holtom, a British illustrator and graphic designer, who was working on a logo for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), that is, that English campaign that promoted nuclear disarmament: a few years had passed since the explosions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the tense climate of the Cold War did nothing but increase the fear of a new attack of this type.
In those years, therefore, there were numerous peaceful protests on the streets of the cities and for one of these – the one in London’s Trafalgar Square – it was decided to create a symbol for the movement that could be waved on flags and billboards.
The meaning of the shape of the peace symbol
To this day he does not know exactly what Holtom’s idea was, given that he himself told different versions of the same story over the years.
The first of these claims that the symbol is nothing more than a stylized version that combines the letters N and D in the semaphore alphabet – that is, the alphabet produced through the movement of flags and usually used in the navy – inside a circle. These two letters, represented in the image below, would stand for “Nuclear Disarmament” – that is, nuclear disarmament.
The second story instead tells us that those three lines would be nothing more than the stylized version of a person with his arms open downwards, as a sign of surrender.
Regardless of its true origin, it is interesting to note how in a short time that design went from being closely linked to anti-nuclearism to becoming a symbol of peace for entire generations.
In reality, there are other symbols of peace, from the dove with an olive branch, to the rainbow-coloured peace flag itself.
