Peace symbol

The peace symbol (☮ U+262E) was designed and completed February 21 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a commercial artist in Britain. The symbol resembles a crow's foot in a circle.

Holtom had been commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to design a symbol for use at an Easter march to Canterbury Cathedral in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in England.

The symbol itself is a combination of the semaphore signals for the letters "N" and "D", standing for Nuclear Disarmament. (The letter "N" is two flags held in an upside-down "V", and the letter "D" is one flag pointed straight up and the other pointed straight down).

Critics of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the peace movement of the 1960s generally (including the John Birch Society) have referred to the peace symbol as a "broken cross", indicating a repudiation of Christ, the up-side down cross of John the Baptist, and an alternative version of the Nazi swastika.