The peace symbol emoji was added to Unicode 1.1 in 1993. It looked much simpler back then, getting properly emojified as part of Unicode’s Emoji 1.0 set in 2015. Across most platforms, it appears as a white peace symbol on a purple background, though Facebook features a black peace symbol on no background. On emoji keyboards, it’s found among other religious and astrological symbols, like the Latin cross ✝️ or Scorpio ♏ emoji, set off as they usually are in purple.

The symbol that the emoji depicts is a universally recognizable symbol for peace designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom for the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. According to Holtom, the symbol depicts both the flag semaphore symbols for the letters N and D (for nuclear disarmament) in a circle and a human with hands at their sides in front of Earth.

Since its creation, the peace symbol has seen extensive use as part of protests against nuclear proliferation as well as war and violence more generally. The hippie-inflected countercultural movement that arose in opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1960s, for example, extensively used the peace symbol for its protests. Its emoji incarnation continues the campaign for peace and love into the digital age.

Wired