Skull and crossbones

Actual skulls and bones were long used to mark the entrances to Spanish cemeteries (campo santo).

Identical insignia has been used in the Prussian army after the First World War by Freikorps and in Nazi Germany by the Wehrmacht and the SS.

The idea of elitism symbolized by the skull and crossbones has influenced sub- and pop culture and has become part of the fashion industry.

[9] In the 1870s poison manufacturers around the world began using bright cobalt bottles with a variety of raised bumps and designs (to enable easy recognition in the dark) to indicate poison,[10] but by the 1880s the skull and cross bones had become ubiquitous, and the brightly coloured bottles lost their association.

However, in 2001, the American Association of Poison Control Center voted to continue to require the skull and crossbones symbol.