Erowid Hippies Vault : Timeline

Modern humans must learn how to relate to psychoactives
responsibly, treating them with respect and awareness,
working to minimize harms and maximize benefits, and
integrating use into a healthy, enjoyable, and productive life.

Hippies

Timeline

by Erowid

Sep 1962		Timothy Leary founds the International Foundation for Internal Freedom (IFIF) which publishes The Psychedelic Review.
1963		LSD first appears on the streets liquid on sugar cubes. Articles about LSD first appear in mainstream media Look, Saturday Evening Post. 1
Mar-Apr, 1965		Protests begin against the Vietnam war.
Feb 1965		The United States begins bombing Vietnam.
Feb 1965		Owsley Bear Stanley first succeeded in synthesizing crystalline LSD. Earliest distribution was March 1965. 2
Aug 31, 1965		Burning draft cards becomes illegal in the U.S.
Sep 5, 1965		Michael Fallon, a writer from San Francisco, uses the term "hippie" for the first time, to refer to the SF counterculture. It was published in an article about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse where LEMAR (Legalize Marijuana) & the Sexual Freedom League met.
Dec 4, 1965		The Grateful Dead perform their first show in San Jose
1966		Leary founds the League of Spiritual Development, with LSD as the sacrement. 3
Jan 21-23, 1966		The Trips Festival [Details] [More Info] Held at Longshoreman's Hall, San Francisco, CA. Produced by Stewart Brand, Ken Kesey, and Bill Graham. Featured Ken Kesey & The Merry Pranksters, Big Brother & The Holding Company, Neal Cassady, the Grateful Dead, Allen Ginsberg, the Hell's Angels, and many more.
Oct 6, 1966		The Love Pageant Rally [Details] Held in in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA. Produced by Michael Bowen and Allen Cohen. Creators of The San Francisco Oracle threw a big party for thousands of hippies on the date that LSD was first made illegal in California, inviting Ken Kesey & The Merry Pranksters, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and others. Retrospectively considered to have been a "warm up" event for the Human Be-In that happened on January 14, 1967.
Nov 5, 1966		10,000 people join the Walk for Love and Peace and Freedom in New York City.
1967		Summer of Love in San Francisco. First human be-in.
Jan 14, 1967		The Human Be-In [Details] Held in in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA. Produced by Michael Bowen and Allen Cohen. Creators of The San Francisco Oracle threw an even bigger party for 20,000+ hippies, inviting Timothy Leary (who made his first public appearance in San Francisco), Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jerry Rubin, and others, including Owsley Stanley, who provided his newly illicit LSD for those in attendance. The Hells Angels worked as event security, while music was performed by Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.
Mar 26, 1967		10,000 people attend a be-in in New York's central park.
Jun 1967		Summer of Love in San Francisco.
Jun 21, 1967		"Love-In" in San Francisco thousands of doses of DOM (STP) were distributed for free, unfortunately, they were distributed in approximately 10-15 mg doses, 5-10 times higher than Shulgin had recommended, and many people were hospitalized after getting way too high. 4, 5, 6 [Details] Some reports state that hundreds of people experienced extreme trips lasting up to three days with many ending up in the hospital. Some estimates are that 5,000 or more doses were distributed, but Erowid believes the number of doses distributed up to and through June is less than one thousand, based on notes from Tim Scully who discussed this with "Bear" Owsley Stanley, the number was much lower than some reports. The BNDD Microgram Bulletin from November 1967 states "In early June, allegedly several thousand 'STP' tablets were distributed free at a "LOVE IN" in the San Francisco area. However, the contemporaneous reports from the FDA do not support the "several thousand" number which was published in November, six months after the events in question.
Jan 16, 1968		Youth International Party (Yippies) founded by Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Paul Krassner and others.
Aug 1968		Anti-war demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention lead to arrests and the Chicago Seven trial.
Summer 1969		Orange sunshine acid first appears. 1
Jul 1969		The Farm commune in Tennessee is founded by Stephen Gaskin.
Jul 27, 1969		Stonewall uprising in Greenwich Village, NYC after police raid a gay bar. Seen as the beginning of the gay rights movement.
Aug 15, 1969		Woodstock Music and Art Festival begins.
Aug 15-17, 1969		The Woodstock Music & Art Fair [Details] Held in White Lake, New York. Produced by Artie Kornfeld, Michael Lang, John Roberts, and Joel Rosenman. The infamously over-attended rock concert that drew around 500,000 hippies to listen to over thirty acts, including The Band, Joan Baez, Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the Grateful Dead, Arlo Guthrie, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Ravi Shankar, and The Who.
Apr 22, 1970		First Earth Day, participated in by millions.
May 4, 1970		Four College Students Killed by National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio.
Jun 15, 1970		Supreme Court approves conscientious objector status on moral grounds.
Jul 31-Aug 2, 1970		Powder Ridge Rock Festival is cancelled but 30,000 hippies show up at the outdoor festival despite police attempts to stop the event. [Details] [More Info] Considered one of several watershed events in the counter cultural history of the time, this massive event in Connecticut drew people from all over the country. Officials attempted to stop it and most of the scheduled music bands failed to make it into the event. Psychedelics and cannabis were widely available.
Sep 18, 1970		Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, a musician important to the hippy and psychedelic scene, dies.
Dec 1971		Greenpeace is founded.
Jul 1972		First rainbow gathering is held in Colorado.
Mar 29, 1973		Last U.S. troops officially withdrawn from Vietnam.
Aug 1973		The Freek Press, a free newspaper distributed at the second Windsor Free Festival (UK), includes the Acid Report, which describes various microdots circulating at the event. 7 [More Info]

References

Lee MA, Shlain B. Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion. Grove, 1985.
Eisner B. "Interview with an Alchemist: Bear: Owsley, LSD Chemist Extraordinaire". BruceEisner.com
Ray O, Ksir C. Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior. Mosby, 1996.
Bureau of Drug Abuse Control. Micro-Gram. Nov 1967;1(1):1-2.
Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Microgram. May 1968;1(8):2.
Scully T. Personal Communication with Trout and Erowid. 2021.
Jarnow J. Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America. 2016; pp 79-80.