Tidbit #30 - April 29, 2011

Remember the 60s? All the hippies talking about how groovy it'd be if everyone stopped the war, made free love, promoted peace? Yeah, I remember that, too. But, I've wondered what's up with that weird hand sign that they pioneered and is now used in common life. Why do they use that weird two fingers up sign?

Question: Where did the hand sign for peace come from?


Answer: Ahh, Wikipedia. It's helped us quite a bit in the long run, hasn't it? I searched it up, and found an entire article on the "V Sign". You can go to the article here.

An early recorded use of the "two-fingered salute" is in the Macclesfield Psalter of c.1330 (in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), being made by a glove in the Psalter’s marginalia. 

According to a popular legend, the two-fingered salute or V sign derives from the gestures of longbowmen fighting in the English army at the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War. According to the story, the French claimed that they would cut off the arrow-shooting fingers of all the English and Welsh longbowmen after they had won the battle at Agincourt. But the English came out victorious and showed off their two fingers, still intact. Historian Juliet Barker quotes Jean Le Fevre (who fought on the English side at Agincourt) as saying that Henry V included a reference to the French cutting off longbowmen's fingers in his pre-battle speech. If this is correct it confirms that the story was around at the time of Agincourt, although it does not necessarily mean that the French practised it, just that Henry found it useful for propaganda, and it does not show that the two-fingered salute is derived from the hypothetical behaviour of English archers at that battle.

The first definitive known reference to the V sign in French is in the works of François Rabelais, a sixteenth-century satirist.

It was not until the start of the 20th century that clear evidence of the use of insulting V sign in England became available, when in 1901 a worker outside Parkgate ironworks in Rotherham used the gesture (captured on the film) to indicate that he did not like being filmed. Peter Opie interviewed children in the 1950s and observed in The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren that the much older thumbing of the nose (cock-a-snook) had been replaced by the V sign as the most common insulting gesture used in the playground. (Re: Wikipedia.com Article)

Okay, that was a nice wall of text. Here's your summary:

The sign for peace could have started as a salute around the 1330s, where the sign was made from a glove. Some say that the sign was derived from the English Battle of Agincourt in 1413, when the French threatened to cut off the British's fingers, and the British showed off their two remaining digits. Henry V also made reference to this in a pre-battle speech. It was first referred to as the "V Sign" by François Rabelais, a satirist of the time. In 1901, a British worker used the gesture on a camera to show that he didn't want to be filmed. In the 1950s, Peter Opie discovered through interviewing children that biting your thumb at people had been replaced with the V sign as an insult gesture, like flipping someone off is today.

Still not satisfied? Here's your final condensed answer:

The V sign for peace could've been introduced in the 1330s as part of a glove or 1415 during the Hundred Years' War. It was first put into popular use in 1901.

Tidbit #27, Part 2 - April 26, 2011

Okay, let's finish up our dollar bill analysis. We've already gone over all of the symbols on the front with any general relevance, so let's go over the back, where the real history lesson is.

If you need the dollar bill pictures, you can check 'em out in the last post.

Okay, the back of the dollar has a LOT of symbols. Before we begin, here's a neat factoid about the back of the dollar:

• The Great Seal of the United States (the circles on the back) was actually designed by Ben Franklin and his peers when the First Continental Congress requested it of them. It took them four years to complete, and another two to get Congress to approve it.

Let's start with the pyramid. Here are your facts about the left half of the Great Seal of the United States (follow the photo below):

• Annuit cœptis is a phrase with Latin roots. Annuit comes from the Latin word annuo, meaning "to approve." Cœptis comes from a Latin word coeptum, meaning "commencement" or "undertaking." When translated, this phrase was meant to say "He approves of the undertakings." (He being God)
• The other motto on the pyramid, Novus Ordo Seclorum, translates in Latin to "New Order of the Ages," which means that there's a new power in the world, people better watch out! The idea was pitched by Latin expert Charles Thomson, who worked on the Seal with Franklin.
• MDCCLXXVI, located at the bottom level of the pyramid, is the roman numeral for 1776, which is, of course, the year in which the United States signed its Declaration of Independence.
• If you look closely, you will see the the pyramid (if you don't count the top section with the eye) has 13 sections to represent the original 13 colonies.
• The eye at the top of the pyramid is supposed to represent God, shining onto the fledgling country like the sun. Franklin believed that one man couldn't make this Seal alone, but with the help of God, men are capable of anything.
• The lit end of the pyramid represents the original U.S., while the dark half represents the then unexplored West, which puts the idea of manifest destiny into our Seal.
• Wonder why the pyramid was uncapped? It was another symbol of manifest destiny, that our country was just getting started.

That's a lot for just ONE half of our seal, right? Well, I'm just getting started. The Eagle side has just as many, if not more, symbols in it. Here are your Eagle factoids (refer to the photo below):

• First, of course, we have our eagle, which represents our country's bravery. Want a neat fact? Our forefathers chose the bald eagle for our national symbol because the bald eagle is the only bird that's ever been known to fly during a storm. It's also smart, since it knows to fly over the storm instead of through it. (UPDATE: Ben Franklin actually wanted the turkey to be the national emblem rather than the eagle. You can read more on that here.)
• The eagle isn't wearing a crown, which means that our country will never have a monarch.
• There are 13 stars in the set of stars at the top of the seal, once again to represent the original 13 colonies. The clouds around these stars are doubt and misunderstanding, drifting away.
• If you look at the ribbon in the eagle's mouth, you'll see our third motto: E. Pluribus Unum. This phrase translates from Latin to "One nation from many people."
• The shield in front of the eagle is unsupported; this was the country saying that it didn't need any more support from England.
• If you look at the shield in front of the eagle, there are 13 large vertical stripes, if you count the sets of 3 black stripes as 1. (Kind of prying, I know, but there's still 13, so it's gotta have some meaning, right?)
• The eagle's talons hold two items: an olive branch and a set of arrows. The olive branch represents peace, while the set of arrows represents war. In a nutshell, the country was saying: "We're a peaceful country, but we're not afraid to defend ourselves!"
• Going further into the olive branch, there are 13 leaves on the branch, and 13 olives.
• Going further into the arrows, there are 13 arrows in the eagle's talon.
• Notice the direction the eagle's head points? What does it point to? The olive branch or the arrows? If the eagle's head points towards the olive branch, then that dollar was printed during an official time of peace in US History. However, if the eagle's head is facing the arrows, then the dollar was printed during a time of war. (Most of the time, the eagle's head points toward the olive branch, since it wants to maintain peace however possible)
• The set of stars at the top of the seal is shaped like a Star of David, which could represent many different things. It could represent the coming together of man and woman (which is what the Star of David itself represents) or the country's religious tolerance, making stars in the shape of a Jewish Star.

So, as you can see, the dollar is much more than that piece of paper (starched cotton-linen) that you use to buy Twix.

Obviously, we put a lot of emphasis on the number 13. ("13 colonies, 13 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 13 stripes on our flag, 13 steps on the Pyramid, 13 letters in the Latin above, 13 letters in "E Pluribus Unum", 13 stars above the Eagle, 13 bars on that shield, 13 leaves on the olive branch, 13 olives, and if you look closely, 13 arrows. And, for minorities: the 13th Amendment." [Re: terroristwatch.tripod.com])

We put emphasis in our seal for the number 1776, our bravery, and God.

Want to learn more? Check out my sources below, and I hope you guys enjoyed learning more about the dollar!

Sources:

• http://terroristwatch.tripod.com/dollar_bill.html (for lots of the analysis)
• http://www.lighthouseinvestmentmanagement.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/United_States_one_dollar_bill_reverse-low.jpg (high-res photo of the back of a dollar bill)
• http://content.reviewed.com/products/10206/specs/5032/PANASONIC_DMC_GF2_dollar_full.jpg (high-res photo of the front of a dollar bill)
• http://www.kilroywashere.org/06-Images/Dollar/TreasurySeal.jpg (Department of the Treasury Seal)
• http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/d/dollarbill.htm (Confirmation of some of the analysis)
• http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/Federal%20Reserve%20Scam/Eye.jpg (Photo of pyramid on Treasury Seal)
• https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1fncy2EaU545qAcIsbNyOfg9ENgenokXM_2PX7y2KpxRbj6FOCXu6c3OZh8G4XgIj630_1d2CYhJ-2W-6iAozgSWL73OX-SeQ-oh9YYRfimciwraHp9zLSpHNelOe4VxpUwk_55XE9D0/s1600/Eagle.jpg (Photo of Eagle on Treasury Seal)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novus_ordo_seclorum (Information on Novus Ordo Seclorum)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pluribus_unum (Information on E. Pluribus Unum)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annuit_c%C5%93ptis (Information on Annuit cœptis)