Skip to main content

What is the origin of the peace symbol of 1958?

The symbols, enclose in their mysterious and iconic forms, great stories and deep feelings to discover.They talk about human movements, exaltations, struggles and beliefs.Without doubt, one of the most Tradition is this classic circle with a kind of inverted blade inside.Just seeing it makes us think of the 60s and hippies, we remember John Lennon and his «Imagine».We associate it with old shirts that went to a hundred demonstrations, which ran in front of the occasional police trying to disperse those protests for nuclear weapons, for wars always incomprehensible, but always present.

Surely you even have this symbol on some object, or on a piece of clothes, but have you ever wondered about their origin? Today in Lifestyle we want to remember it, because surely there is some nuance in the story that you find interesting.

The symbol of nuclear disarmament

Symbols of peace .Just saying this word is most likely to immediately come to mind the classic dove of peace with an olive twig in its beak.This image had its representation after the two world wars , after those two devastating moments for humanity where this symbol, has its origin in the Old Testament, when Noe releases a white dove in order to find land after firm after the flood.After a while, the animal returns with a Olive branch, a sign that the disaster was over and that God was again at peace with humanity.

At the end of the 50s, when the world had already recovered more or less of those two disasters, human irrationality was rising again in the form of world superpowers with yearnings of power. Confrontations in which they were forced to develop destructive weapons with which to give an image of strength and supremacy.And what better than nuclear weapons.The world therefore needed a new symbol of peace , a graphic gesture with which to exclaim the conscience and the shout of millions of people who only asked for the balance and tranquility of a life away from nuclear bombs.

What is the origin of the peace symbol of 1958?

It was therefore requested , a symbol that represents disarmament.And who was in charge of designing it? A British artist: Gerald Holtom, former student of the Royal College of Arts, who in 1958 presented to the world a very simple drawing with which to identify the movement CND (Campaign forn Nuclear Disarmament). To create it, it was based on an idea I had in mind, it should be a very simple icon.Very elementary and at the same time illustrative.I use the initials N and D of "Nuclear Disarmament" based on the language of flags created by the military.In turn, the positions of these flags also represented a man about to be executed with raised hands, as if crying for mercy.In fact, Holtom, I think in that peasant who appears in the picture of the "May 3 Fusilations" of Goya in front of a battalion.

A symbol that went around the world

It may seem curious, but for many, this symbol was not new. John Dalton, for example, a 19th-century British chemist and physicist already used it to represent phosphorus.And even more, there is who associates a somewhat sinister reverse to the peace symbol of Gerald Holton. And how can it be? you may ask.Indeed, it was in Neron times when in his madness and persecution, I use a "something similar" symbol to attack Christianity: an inverted cross. Conspiracy images that deviate us a bit from that original image and from such noble purposes.

What is the origin of the peace symbol of 1958?

The Gerald Holton symbol soon became an icon.It is said that popularization in the United States was He owed the famous activist Albert Bigelow, who painted him on his ship to raise a harsh protest against nuclear weapons.There is also talk of Bayard Rustin , friend of Martin Luther King, who also used it to defend the civil rights of blacks.Flags, badges, painted on walls and subway stations, key rings, rings, pendants, badges on university campuses...his progress was unstoppable, rising like a shout proclaiming peace, a peace in that context of the Cold War and wars like Vietnam, which served as an icon for all those young people and not so young they called hippies.

A symbol that does not claim copyright and that we can all do ours to ask for something as universal as the right to live in peace. The right to coexist in harmony, union and tranquility.

If you liked this article, don't miss the story about the origin of the gay flag either.

Image: Donna Cleveland, Matteo Piotto, zmfg!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jigai, the Japanese female suicide ritual

At Lifestyle we already talked to you at the time of seppuku, the ritual suicide practiced by both samurai and daimyo or former Japanese feudal lords .At a time and in a culture where he was offered more value to the honor that to the own life, the suicide was an act of valia and honesty, in case one committed an improper act or fell defeated in the battlefield. It is a subject that seen from the cultural and anthropological point of view always fascinates us.Now, something that is not so well known and that has always been a little behind the curtain of the male practice of harakiri, is that women were also forced to put an end to his life if his husbands fell. And not only the husband, the mothers also started their own ritual suicide if they had a samurai son who fell in dishonor and committed seppuku. This guy of Japanese female suicide has a name: Jigai.We'll talk about it in our space. Jigai, the Japanese female suicide ritual If you are interested in the subject ...

Who peels already peeled pipes?

Have you ever stopped to think who peels the pipes that are already peeled when you buy them? Eating already peeled pipes is a pleasure for some and nonsense for the more we approach to eat pipes in the traditional way, that peel this dried fruit with tenacity, to be able to feel to the maximum the pleasure of eating them one by one or a bunch.Curiosity has always stung you and you have never investigated it, we explain it in this new Lifestyle post. Myths and legends about bare pipes There are many Myths that run through the mouths of most people, who love to peel and eat pipes on a Sunday afternoon, about how to peel the pipes that are sold already peeled. But the urban legend that I have heard in this regard is that a group of old ladies dedicated to sitting in the afternoon watching television, are the responsible for sucking pipes until the husks are soft enough to separate the pipe from the shell.Disgusting, right? Undoubtedly, this unique way of peeling the p...

9 casino tricks to "catch you"

Wow, they play a little with our minds! We reveal, next, several tricks of the casinos with which they manage to seduce us to spend more than expected in bets.Many of them maybe you can not imagine them. 9 tricks of the casinos to «catch you» 1.Few windows If you have visited casinos, you will surely have noticed that most of them have windows in places near the entrance...very distant from the action center “where magic happens.” The truth is that this has nothing to do with design issues.It is, rather, part of one of their gadgets. Well once you're inside, everything that happens in the outside world must seem alien to you.Because without windows you are likely to lose track of time.You will not know if it is day or night, so you will want to continue betting and playing , due to that your biological clock is For a little dislocated.Besides, there are numerous distractions outside.If you have a view of what happens beyond those walls, you may lose a bit of the hitc...

Japan's corpse hotels

Are there corpse hotels somewhere in the world ?! We know many types, even for animals but people already dead? Join us in Japan to see what it is all about. The corpse hotels of Japan The custom of incinerating bodies as a body is increasingly widespread as a alternative to burials; Several reasons support this decision, which can range from religious to hygienic or space reasons.For example, for Buddhists and Hinduists, the incineration of the body is necessary because it facilitates the transit of the soul, or the exit of this from the physical, human body. Japan, a quintessential syncretic country, although with a large Shinto and Buddhist population, has been forced for reasons of space to cremate 99.9% of deceased persons in the territory; if we think that it has 126,926,000 inhabitants , with an annual mortality rate of approximately 10.10% (which would mean more or less 12 million deaths ), it will give us a The idea of ​​how many cremations can be requested in thi...

The story of Odile Fernandez and cancer

Is cancer directly related to eating habits? How likely are we to suffer a cancer from poor nutrition? If you want to know more about this topic, we tell you everything through the story of a fighter, Odile Fernandez. «Breast, doctor and cancer survivor». The story of Odile Fernandez Odile Fernandez is a family doctor who was fed fatally.When she was detected an ovarian cancer, she began to investigate the relationship between cancer and poor nutrition.Today, after 5 years of overcoming cancer and a second child, he has decided to tell us in his blog misrecetasanticancer.com and in his book My recipes of anticancer cuisine as prevent as far as each of us can cancer from poor nutrition. In fact, up to 60,000 copies of his book have been sold and he shows us up to 1200 references of the relationship between cancer and nutrition. 20 ali Mentions anticancer according to Odile Fernandez And it is that according to the specialists the 65% of the cancers are due to sp...

5 powerful natural antibiotics

Although there are records of use of antibiotics in China 2,500 years ago, it was not until the forties of the last century that the first drugs of this class were fully developed.Since then this item has occupied a prominent place in the world pharmaceutical industry, although, without having turned the century, difficulties and doubts about the effectiveness of these drugs developed in laboratories are beginning to arise. These problems, resistance by the Bacteria to the most used medications, have made many have turned their eyes to natural antibiotics, which are generally closer than you think. 5 powerful natural antibiotics 1.Garlic ( Allium sativum ) This plant is probably native to Western Asia and is an extremely popular ingredient ar and known since ancient times, in cultures such as Greek, Roman or Indian.It not only serves to repel vampires, with more than 60 antiviral and antibacterial components, it is considered one of the most potent natural antibiotics. ...

Do you know what is kissing disease?

It is possible that you have passed the kissing disease without you noticing it.It usually occurs with tiredness and fever, hence it is common to confuse it with other conditions, unless we do an analysis more exhaustive.Surely there is no disease acquired in such a sweet and seductive way as this, a virus that is transmitted by saliva in those passionate encounters that people have at any age.Would you like to know more? Sweet disease, mild disease Very few people lose their lives from kissing disease.Doctors always say that it is better to pass it at an early age to be quickly immunized because of it, although it is not entirely certain that we will not suffer it again throughout our lives.It is essentially an infectious disease caused by a virus with a peculiar name: Epstein-Barr , a type of herpes that we transmit through saliva from human to human.It is true that we can also acquire it when for example we share a soda, but the infection basically comes through our kisses...

3 nuclear incidents that could be catastrophic

The nuclear issue is inexhaustible.We invite you to take a look at three incidents that, fortunately, had no major damage.Do you dare? Home nuclear apocalypse When talking about nuclear accidents, we immediately think of nuclear power plants such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima, which have taken the horror of radiation even beyond the countries and regions where they are located., nuclear death has ways of traveling simpler and less ethereal than a radioactive cloud. During the so-called Cold War there were nuclear weapons of both sides in continuous displacement, by land (in trains and trucks launches missiles) , by sea (in ships and submarines powered by nuclear energy) and by air (in superbombarderos), ready to be used as soon as the order to start the nuclear apocalypse was given. Transporting a bomber This continuous movement was naturally affected by several accidents in which chance played a key role in preventing disasters of unimaginable proportions....

Puddicat, the cat that guides a blind dog

You know that in Lifestyle we love animals .And, sometimes, these little friends of our daily lives offer us such great great examples of "humanity" that they force us to do some other reflection exercise. This story went around the world with «Nat Geo Wild», who picked up the story of these two protagonists , of a dog and a cat that, far from living in continuous discord that insists on maintaining the popular tradition, have established the best of teams.That union that asks for nothing in return, that does not know about selfishness and that only seeks mutual company. Today, we invite you to meet two "good guys" , their names? Puddicat and Trevel. The story of a blind dog and his best friend We will begin this story with Trevel. His story It is like many other dogs: a childhood of abuse and a life of difficulties, trying to overcome the consequences left by irrational humans.Trevel is now 14 years old and when he was only a puppy suffered serio...

Meet this new religion ... it will make you very funny!

We are not promoting mockery of the beliefs of others, it is simply that this new religion, called pastafarismo , has emerged as a humorous way to fight against certain educational decrees in the United States.Do you dare to see what it is about? Your reason The United States is a secular country : the Church and the State are separated and a code governs civil for the acts of the people.Therefore, is expressly prohibited in its Constitution the teaching of any religion in public schools . However, for being its population mostly Christian (Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Mormons, Evangelicals, Congregationalists, Adventists, and a long and large group), in 1999 many fundamentalist groups, who do not believe in theories of evolution, argued that evolutionism should be considered as one more religion and that, in that sense, creationism (the biblical version of the creation of the world) should be taught in schools to give students an alternative point of ...