What is the origon of the Western style salute?

[chuckster]

In any Western army, and really in virtually all armies today, soldiers salute by raising their hand to their brow. Why this particular gesture? Does it have something to do with raising their visors or removing their hats in past times, or what?

[Ice_Wolf]

One theory from this site, US Army Quartermaster Center & School:

It was a long-established military custom for juniors to remove their headgear in the presence of superiors. In the British Army as late as the American Revolution a soldier saluted bv removing his hat. But with the advent of more cumbersome headgear in the 18th and 19th centuries, the act of removing one’s hat was gradually converted into the simpler gesture of grasping the visor, and issuing a courteous salutation. From there it finally became conventionalized into something resembling our modern hand salute.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Funny. I always thought it descended from the swordsman’s salute- a three-part movement that began with the sword pointing up and a little forward, brought in so the guard sits below the chin and the blade is vertical, then pointed down and forward, which evolved into the point up from the chin then a downward and outward slash.

Shows what I know.

[orianabird]

The explination I got in a Medieval studies class was that greeting people with the upturned palm of your right hand showed them that you weren’t holding a sword; that you were friendly. This motion eventually morphed into a British Army-style salute where the right hand is flat pressed to the forhead with the palm facing out. Americans could have modified this slightly into the much cooler hand perpendicular to the forhead, just at the end of the eyebrow. Being the icons of cool, other countries would have followed our lead.
This origin also explains the Nazi style salute, with the original Medieval upturned palm changing into something slightly different from the British take.
Of course, the nice thing about ancient history is its margin of error.

[OttoDaFe]

Actualy, an expansion of Ice Wolf’s cite.

In medieval Britain, a hatless peasant was expected to touch (or pull) his forelock to a superior. This strikes me as even more closely related to the modern gesture.

[Alessan]

*Originally posted by orianabird *
**
This origin also explains the Nazi style salute, with the original Medieval upturned palm changing into something slightly different from the British take.
Of course, the nice thing about ancient history is its margin of error. **

Actually I think that the Nazi salute was ripped off from the Italian Fascist salute, which was in turn an update of the classical Roman “Ave Caesar!” salute - which means it predates medieaval visor-raisings.