The use of a dove as a symbol of peace originated with early Christians, who portrayed baptism accompanied by a dove, often on their sepulchres. The descent of Holy Spirit in the Christian Trinity depicted as a dove of peace in a church memorial stained glass window. On the Great Seal of the United States (1782), the olive branch denotes peace, as explained by Charles Thomson, Secretary to Congress: 'The Olive branch and arrows denote the power of peace & war which is exclusively vested in Congress.' Dove and olive branch Christianity In July that year, the American Continental Congress adopted the ' Olive Branch Petition' in the hope of avoiding a full-blown war with Great Britain.

In January 1775, the frontispiece of the London Magazine published an engraving of Peace descending on a cloud from the Temple of Commerce, bringing an olive branch to America and Britannia. Below William is the defeated French king, Louis XIV. Peace, with her doves and lambs, hands an olive branch to William, who in turn hands the cap of liberty to Europe, where absolute monarchy prevails. The Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, contains an allegorical painting by James Thornhill, Peace and Liberty Triumphing Over Tyranny (1708–1716), depicting King William III and Queen Mary (who had enacted the English Bill of Rights) enthroned in heaven with the Virtues behind them. Throughout the 18th century, English coins show Britannia with a spear and olive branch. A Charles I gold coin of 1644 shows the monarch with sword and olive branch. Poets of the 17th century associated the olive branch with peace. James Thornhill, Peace and Liberty Triumphing Over Tyranny

The V hand signal and the peace flag also became international peace symbols. The symbol is a super-imposition of the semaphore signals for the letters 'N' and 'D', taken to stand for 'nuclear disarmament', while simultaneously acting as a reference to Goya's The Third of May 1808 (1814) (aka 'Peasant Before the Firing Squad'). In the 1950s the 'peace sign', as it is known today (also known as 'peace and love'), was designed by Gerald Holtom as the logo for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), a group at the forefront of the peace movement in the UK, and adopted by anti-war and counterculture activists in the US and elsewhere. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by early Christians and then eventually became a secular peace symbol, popularized by a Dove lithograph by Pablo Picasso after World War II. The symbol designed for the British nuclear disarmament movement in 1958 is now widely known as the 'peace sign'.Ī number of peace symbols have been used many ways in various cultures and contexts.

World serenity symbol