Hippie Movement Timeline

Eden Ahbez, associated with the Nature Boys, wrote Nature Boy. Nat King Cole recorded the hit in 1947, bringing the group’s homegrown back-to-nature ideals to mainstream American audiences.

Image source: Nature Boy

The Family Dog hosted A Tribute to Dr. Strange at Longshoreman’s Hall on October 16, 1965. The event grew out of Red Dog Saloon experiences and helped establish San Francisco’s psychedelic concert culture.

The Trips Festival was held at Longshoreman’s Hall from January 21 to 23, 1966. Organized by Stewart Brand, Ken Kesey, Owsley Stanley, Zach Stewart, and others, it combined psychedelic music, performance, and multimedia spectacle.

Image source: Acid Tests

In February 1966, the Family Dog became Family Dog Productions under Chet Helms. It promoted events at the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore Auditorium, initially cooperating with Bill Graham.

The Woodstock Music and Art Festival took place in Bethel, New York, in August 1969. Its large, peaceful gathering and celebrated performances came to exemplify an idealized version of hippie counterculture.

Image source: Woodstock

A major concert took place in Altamont, California, in December 1969. The event became a darker counterpart to Woodstock and is remembered as one of the major gatherings of the era.

Image source: Altamont Free Concert

The Isle of Wight Festival in August 1970 attracted an even larger attendance than Woodstock. It was a major British hippie gathering and included some prominent musicians’ final major concert appearances.

Image source: Isle of Wight Festival 1970

The Stonehenge Free Festival began in 1974 through the efforts of figures including Wally Hope. English Heritage later banned it, contributing to the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985.

Image source: Stonehenge Free Festival

The Burning Man festival began as a San Francisco beach party in 1986. It evolved into a temporary city featuring elaborate encampments, displays, and art cars, reflecting enduring hippie-influenced communal and artistic practices.

Image source: Burning Man

The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival premiered in 2002 in Manchester, Tennessee. Its sold-out beginning established a major contemporary festival tradition for music fans connected to countercultural and hippie legacies.

Image source: Bonnaroo

Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters undertook a famous 1964 road trip across the United States in the psychedelically painted school bus Further. The journey became an influential symbol of psychedelic communal culture.

Image source: Merry Pranksters

The first Acid Test was held in Palo Alto, California, in November 1965. Organized around LSD, music, light effects, and participatory performance, the events featured the Grateful Dead and helped define psychedelic festival culture.

California made LSD a controlled substance on October 6, 1966, ending its legal status in the state and intensifying the association between psychedelic experimentation and political opposition.

Image source: LSD

The Human Be-In took place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, on January 14, 1967. About 30,000 people gathered, and Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Michael McClure led chanting of Om, helping popularize the hippie label and culture.

Image source: Human

The Mantra-Rock Dance was held on January 29, 1967. It joined devotional chanting, psychedelic culture, and countercultural music, becoming an important expression of hippie spirituality.

Image source: Mantra-Rock Dance

During the Summer of Love, an estimated 100,000 people traveled to San Francisco. Around 15,000 hippies had moved into the Haight by June, making the district an international center of counterculture.

Image source: Summer of Love

The Diggers criticized the term hippie and organized the Death of Hippie event in October 1967. A funeral notice invited people to services beginning at sunrise on October 6 in Buena Vista Park.

Image source: Hippie

The Los Angeles Free Press began in May 1964 as a broadside called The Faire Free Press. It became one of the earliest publications in the underground press network serving countercultural communities.

Image source: Los Angeles Free Press

The first draft card burnings took place in New York City on May 12, 1964. The act became a visible form of opposition to military conscription and the Vietnam War.

More draft-card burnings occurred in May 1965 at the University of California, Berkeley, alongside the Free Speech Movement. Protesters also marched a coffin to the Berkeley draft board.

The Berkeley Barb began publication in August 1965, joining the growing underground press. It reported on protest, alternative politics, and countercultural life in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Image source: Berkeley Barb

President Lyndon Johnson signed a law on August 31, 1965, making draft-card burning punishable by up to five years in prison and a $1,000 fine. Demonstrators continued the practice despite the new penalties.

Image source: Draft-card burning

New York’s East Village Other began in October 1965. The paper became an important voice for the city’s avant-garde, radical, and hippie communities.

Image source: East Village Other

The Fifth Estate began in Detroit in November 1965 as part of the expanding underground press. It provided a forum for countercultural politics and antiwar ideas.

Image source: Fifth Estate

East Lansing’s The Paper began in December 1965, extending the underground press movement into a university-centered community.

Image source: The Paper (American newspaper)

By 1966, the Underground Press Syndicate had been organized. A conference sponsored by Middle Earth in Iowa City brought together about 80 presses from the United States and Canada.

Image source: Underground Press Syndicate

About 3,000 Yippies took over New York’s Grand Central Station during the 1968 spring equinox, resulting in 61 arrests. The Yippies parodied conventional politics while promoting radical protest.

Image source: Youth International Party

The Poor People’s Campaign established Resurrection City on Washington’s National Mall beginning May 12, 1968. The encampment included Black, Native, and Latino militants as well as hippies and Diggers, and was removed by riot police on June 24.

Image source: Poor People's Campaign

The Yippies publicized plans to protest the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and nominate the pig Pigasus as their candidate. Allen Ginsberg, a friend of Abbie Hoffman and other Chicago Seven members, was also associated with the period.

Image source: 1968 Democratic National Convention

The construction of People’s Park in Berkeley received international attention in April 1969. After a major confrontation on May 15, Governor Ronald Reagan ordered a two-week occupation of Berkeley by the National Guard.

Image source: People's Park (Berkeley)