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Short Stuff: Peace Sign · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Jerry's here too, Dave's hear and spirit. This means it's
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: short stuff.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about the peace sign today. This was
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: put together by a guy named Josh Clark.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: No, this is from Jesselyn Shields at how Stuff Works.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: That's right. I was just kidding around. Oh okay, or
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: actually I was serious. But as I was saying it,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I noticed I was wrong.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Wow, this is try to play already, stop laughing.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: But we're talking. That's right. We're talking about the peace sign,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: the very familiar circle with the one vertical line straight
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: down the center and then the two lines branching off
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: at forty five degree angles.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: The peace sign. Everybody, come on, you never know. I mean,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: it's everywhere, It's been everywhere. And weirdly, Chuck, it's not
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: that old, actually, which I guess isn't that we I
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: think it's actually weird that it's older than I thought
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: it was. How about that? Okay, all right, let's get
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: into it.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Let's get into it. Because it didn't start out when
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: the gentleman who created it, one Gerald Holtom. He didn't say, hey,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: this is a peace sign everybody. He was a British artist,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: he wouldn't have said it like that anyway, he would
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: have had an accent. And he was an activist, and
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: he was a conscientious objector of World War two. And
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: it was a time in the nineteen fifties when he
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: was doodling around when people were worried. This is post
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: World War two, and the US dropped two atomic bombs
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: on Japan, and the you know, sort of peace micks
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: of the world where like, hey, this cannot stand man,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: we don't want anyone to do this ever again. And
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: so some groups started forming to try and counter that.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, specifically, there was a group called the Direct Action
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Committee against Nuclear War, a group of pacifists. At the time,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: this is the late fifties, this is pre hippie, but
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: these people definitely prefigured the Hippies who were soon to come.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: But they were legitimately worried about a world where not
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: just one but two and then now three at the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: time nations had nuclear weapons that they were stockpiling, and
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: they ended up co founding with some other groups, the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Campaigned for Nuclear Disarmament that just basically said let's just
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: get rid of these things. It was. You thought it
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: was a good idea, you tried it, it turned out
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: to be a horrific idea. Let's stop doubling and tripling
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and quadrupling down on this and let's just get rid
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of them altogether.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's a group that's still around today, which
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: is pretty great. And one of the first big things
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: they did was organized in march in London from Trafalgar
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Square about fifty two miles or in this case eighty
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: three clicks away to Aldermiston where they had a facility
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: that was producing nuclear material, and Holtam said, you know what, everybody,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: we need a logo.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: They did. I guess he probably sounded a little bit
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: like that, like the Sheriff of Nottingham.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's very kind of you.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: So he came up with this this peace sign for
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the event for that march, and I've seen two different
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: competing explanations of that design, and I don't know if
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: it was just coincidence or what. But he said later
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: on in a letter to somebody the artists himself, David
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: or Gerald Holton, said that it was meant to be
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: a kind of stylized minimalist version of a person in despair,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: standing there with their arms out to their sides downward,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: in their palms facing out, and he says, like in
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the manner of a Spanish peasant being executed by a
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: firing squad, and a Goya painting is a very famous
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Goya painting of a peasant being executed by a French
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: firing squad. But he has his hands up in the air,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: he doesn't have them downward. So I don't know what
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Gerald Holton was talking about. The one that makes way
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: more sense since he was creating this for the Campaign
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: for Nuclear Disarmament. It was actually also called the CND
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: logo that it was Actually it's it's a semaphore. It's
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: a combination of semaphores. That' SAM for N and D.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: That's right, And a semaphore is a is basically an
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: alphabet that you use flags. And this is before you
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: could communicate via you know, short short distance radio. Like
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: you see people out on the tarmac. They're waving those
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: flags around and they're not just saying like over here,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: over there, you can actually spell things out.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: By over there. That's exactly right.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah, but that's what they're doing. It's it's a
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: it's a way of communicating over a long range where
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: you can't hear somebody.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, So the the N, which for nuclear is two
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: lines that basically come apart at a forty five degree
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: angle away from the guy holding or the person holding
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the semaphores right right, So they're standing there straight as
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: an arrow with their arms out to their sides downward
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: holding the flags. That's N. You're spelling an N if
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you do that right. If you want to do a D,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you hold one flag straight up in the air, one
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: flag down, maybe throw your head back all a flashdance
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: just for a little extra touch, and you're spelling a
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: D for disarmament. So if you put that in a circle,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: but you have friends, is the peace sign aka the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament logo.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: And that could be coincidence? Is that what we're saying here.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It's not possible, it's coincidence.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, So what are you saying then? That Holt them
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: was just.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he was misquoted, if he'd forgotten.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I just don't understand the Goya thing because it doesn't
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: even show up in a Goya painting.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just looked up the paint. He's definitely got
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: his arms up.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no mistaking it. I mean maybe if you
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: turned him upside down, but no.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: So the they made these badges out of white clay
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: that they had baked, and the message was basically, if
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: there was a nuclear war, these badges would be one
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: of the few things left behind that would survive. You know,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: that's fine, But the symbol I think was enough. It
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: was very simple, it was very easy to reproduce, and
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: very key. Before he take the break, we will mention
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: that Holtam did not copyright this thing because he wanted
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: it spread far and wide, and that's exactly what happened.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was going to suggest we left it as
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: a cliffhanger whether he copyrighted it or not, but I
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: think you made the right decision.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: All right, then let's say this. Did he copyright it,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Let's find out after the breakup.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: So we said that these pacifists that were into nuclear
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: disarmament in the late fifties prefigured the hippies, and they
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: definitely didn't. What's interesting is the peace symbol is a
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: direct connection between those two groups. Because oh, we didn't
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: say Gerald Wholsome did not copyright his creation. It was
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: free for anybody to use, and he did that on purpose.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: That was a very deliberate thing for him to do,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: because at first he was spreading this message for nuclear disarmament,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: but as the hippies kind of adopted it and took
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: on more and more other stuff that they wanted to
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: see changed for the better, the peace I kind of
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: morphed and evolved from a symbol that everybody recognize meaning
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: nuclear it's or meant to one that meant just peace
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: in general, a whole catch all is what it became expanded.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: And like we said many times already, he didn't copyright
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: this thing, so it was very easy to distribute without
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: having to worry about, you know, fear of legal repercussions
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: or paying somebody for its for its use. So all
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: of a sudden it was, you know, it was all
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: over the place and just became ubiquitous and tied to
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: this idea of peace, which you know, peace and anti
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: nuclear war is not the biggest leap, but it was
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: definitely not the peace sign until Vietnam came around.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also kind of expanded to be a symbol
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: for the struggle to be recognized and treated equally like
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: women's rights movements, environmental movements, the apartheid anti apartheid movement
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: all adopted the peace symbol. The ruling part of South
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Africa tried to ban it in fact, yeah, and that
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: did not take And Gerald Holton, for his part, he
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: wanted the peace symbol on his headstone and he didn't
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: get it. I don't know why I just spoiled that,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: but it seems weird to me. Like if you say
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I want something on this on my headstone, there are
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: very few cases where I think people should be like, no,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: we're not going to put that headstone. But he wanted
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: an inverted peace symbol in the in the manner of
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Agoya peasant being executed exactly.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: He was like, instead of hands down, it should be up,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: like symbolizing growth and like a you know, the tree
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: of life where mankind lives. And I guess whoever was
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: in charge of his funeral said.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Nah, right, I'm sick of that stupid symbol.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Very strange.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: There's one other thing we got to throw in, and
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: that's the Mercedes Ben's logo.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you can't go to Atlanta Falk's football
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: game without seeing that peace sign there on the stadium. Yeah,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: I'd kind of wondered about this, but obviously I didn't
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: put too much thought into it because I knew that
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: the Mercedes Benz company had been around long before the
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifties, and that was the case.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: It was first, it was it was actually the Daimler
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: brothers adopted it as a logo. They adapted it from
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: a postcard their father had sent them, and their home
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: had been marked on the postcard with a three pointed
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: blue star. They're like, let's make that our logo, which
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is sweet and wholesome until you realize what the three
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: points of the star stand for the company's dominance of
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: products for use on land, see and air, which is
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: not exactly peace symbolish, so it's not at all related.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: That's right, Chuck said, that's right. I'm out of stuff
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to talk about, so short stuff's out. Stuff you should
• 10:57
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• 11:00
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