Keep Calm and Carry On
You might remember it as Keep Calm poster, keep calm and snowclone
The archive does not hold a copy of this image that it may show.
Biggest memes ever23 of 32
2008·Early YouTube·informative
A wartime poster almost nobody saw in 1939, found in a second-hand bookshop, and then printed on everything on earth.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- Keep Calm poster
- Spread in
- 2008
- Where it started
- physical
- Format
- Meme
- Made by
- The British Ministry of Information
- Recorded
- Almost 2,500,000 copies, printed between 23 August and 3 September 1939
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
A crown above five words in sans-serif capitals on a red ground. The British government printed 2.45 million copies in 1939 to steady the public through expected bombing, then barely displayed any of them. A copy turned up in a box of books at Barter Books in Alnwick in 2000, the shop framed it, customers asked for reprints, and it went from there.
The design was out of copyright and anybody could sell it, which is precisely why it spread — and which then produced a long trademark dispute when a company tried to claim it. It was thought that two original copies survived until fifteen more turned up on the Antiques Roadshow in 2012.
Why it matteredWhat changed
A government poster printed two and a half million times in 1939 was never put up, and almost all of it was pulped. One copy found in a box of old books in 2000 is where the replicas began.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Printing begins.1
- Taken down
The stored copies are pulped for paper salvage, never having been authorised for display.1
- Found
Stuart Manley, of Barter Books in Alnwick, finds a copy in a box of second-hand books, frames it and begins selling replicas.1
- Took off
A feature in the Guardian raises its profile, and other firms begin selling it.1
- Later
A company is reported to have registered the slogan as a trademark.1
- Corrected
About fifteen originals are brought to the television programme Antiques Roadshow. It had been thought only two survived.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asA poster that kept spirits up in the Blitz.
ActuallyIt was held in storage and was not widely seen during the war.1
More from hereIn this collection
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This spread as an image people copied and reposted, not as a video upload. Originally published on physical.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This spread as an image people copied and reposted, not as a video upload. Originally published on physical.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
More from 2008You were there
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things