50 Fun Facts About Hippie

From which older slang word did the term "hippie" derive?

Both hip and hep were 1940s jive slang for 'sophisticated, currently fashionable'.

Which San Francisco district became the centre of hippie culture?

Around 15,000 hippies had moved into the Haight by June 1966, drawn by cheap Victorian apartments.

Whose September 1965 San Francisco Examiner article was the first West Coast use of "hippie" in print?

He was writing about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse and the beatniks who had moved from North Beach to the Haight.

Which earlier movement did the hippies inherit their tradition of cultural dissent from?

Beats like Allen Ginsberg crossed over and became fixtures of the hippie and anti-war scenes.

Which gathering in Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967, drew 20,000 to 30,000 hippies?

Timothy Leary coined 'Turn on, tune in, drop out' while speaking there.

What name was given to the 1967 season when 100,000 young people descended on San Francisco?

An estimated 100,000 young people descended on the city.

Whose hit song urged listeners heading to San Francisco to wear flowers in their hair?

John Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas wrote it; the song gave hippies the nickname 'Flower Children'.

Which June 1967 event introduced the rock festival to a wide audience and kicked off the Summer of Love?

The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain festival ran the weekend before.

Which novelist led the Merry Pranksters on their bus trips?

Their adventures fill Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

What was the name of the Merry Pranksters' famous school bus?

Beat hero Neal Cassady was at the wheel for the 1964 cross-country trip.

Which Tom Wolfe book chronicled Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters?

It remains one of the enduring literary artefacts of the era.

Which band, originally billed as the Warlocks, played Kesey's Acid Tests often as high as the audience?

The Acid Tests of 1965 are counted as the start of the hippie music-festival tradition.

Which Nevada mining-town venue hosted the 1965 'Red Dog Experience' with the Charlatans and Big Brother?

Bill Ham staged his first primitive light shows there.

Which chemist supplied much of the LSD behind the early San Francisco scene?

He lived in Berkeley in 1965 and helped organise the Trips Festival.

On what date did California make LSD illegal, prompting the Love Pageant Rally?

The Grateful Dead played the rally, held to show that LSD users were neither criminals nor mentally ill.

Which street-theatre group ran free stores and declared the 'death of the hippie' in 1967?

They named themselves after the 17th-century English Diggers led by Gerrard Winstanley.

Which promoter turned the Family Dog into Family Dog Productions and ran the Avalon Ballroom?

Bill Graham ran the Fillmore; Helms later exported the scene to Denver.

Which 1966 Los Angeles clashes over a 10 p.m. loitering law inspired 'For What It's Worth'?

Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda were among the protesters at Pandora's Box.

Which magazine's July 7, 1967 cover story was titled "The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture"?

Its guidelines for the hippie code began 'Do your own thing'.

Which Beatle visited the Haight, found it 'a haven for dropouts' and gave up LSD?

Sgt. Pepper had just been embraced by the movement for its psychedelic imagery.

Which political offshoot, led by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, nominated a pig for president in 1968?

They also tried to levitate the Pentagon at a 1967 war protest.

Which Berkeley plot, planted by hippies in 1969, was ordered destroyed by Governor Reagan?

The National Guard occupied Berkeley for two weeks and hippies planted flowers under the slogan 'Let a Thousand Parks Bloom'.

Which commune, led by Wavy Gravy, provided security at Woodstock?

Over 500,000 people came to Bethel, New York, in August 1969.

Which December 1969 festival, 'Woodstock West', ended in a fatal stabbing by Hells Angels?

Meredith Hunter, 18, was killed during the Rolling Stones' set.

Roughly what share of the US population were 'core visible hippies' in 1968?

The subculture dwindled by the mid-1970s even as its style went mainstream.

Which Beatles song is cited as expressing the gentle hippie ideology of peace and personal freedom?

Hippies called the dominant culture 'the Establishment', 'Big Brother' or 'the Man'.

Which German youth movement of the 1890s-1900s is regarded as a 'proto-hippie' precursor?

Its 'wandering birds' rejected urbanisation for folk music, creative dress and hiking; some later opened America's first health-food stores.

Which 1948 Nat King Cole hit was inspired by a group of California back-to-the-land bohemians?

Songwriter eden ahbez based it on Gypsy Boots, who popularised yoga and organic food.

Which psychologist founded the League for Spiritual Discovery, declaring LSD its sacrament?

He hoped a freedom-of-religion argument would keep the drug legal for adherents; it did not work.

Which Beatles song was inspired by Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience?

John Lennon wrote it for Revolver.

Which San Francisco State professor's 'Monday Night Class' led to The Farm commune?

Late in life he still listed his religion as 'Hippie'.

Which two Indian destinations drew the biggest hippie crowds at the end of the overland Hippie trail?

Others crossed into Nepal to spend months on Kathmandu's Freak Street.

What is the name of the Kathmandu hangout, near Durbar Square, where hippies congregated?

Its Nepal Bhasa name is Jhoo Chhen and it still exists near Durbar Square.

The peace symbol adopted by hippies was originally designed as a logo for which British organisation?

US anti-war protesters embraced it during the 1960s.

Which underground comic anthology launched the work of Robert Crumb and others?

Gilbert Shelton's Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers became the most enduring underground characters.

Which art styles inspired the San Francisco psychedelic posters of Rick Griffin and Wes Wilson?

The style flourished from about 1966 to 1972 and quickly spread to album covers.

What ingredients did light-show artists put between convex lenses on overhead projectors?

The bubbling visuals pulsed to the music alongside slide shows and film loops.

Which Broadway musical about the hippie counterculture opened in 1967?

Films like Easy Rider and Alice's Restaurant followed as more serious portraits.

Which 1968 presidential candidate persuaded young supporters to shave and dress neatly?

The 'Clean Genes' made little dent in the media image of the bearded, beaded hippie.

Which Australian town hosted the 1973 Aquarius Festival and the MardiGrass cannabis rally?

Mexico's hippies, the jipitecas, gathered at Avándaro; New Zealand's at Nambassa.

Roughly how many people attended the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival?

It was the third and largest of the festivals, and British hippies later made summer pilgrimages to Stonehenge.

Which 1990s term described hippies who embraced New Age beliefs, tech and electronic music?

Many earlier hippies had drifted into the New Age movement of the 1970s.

Which festival, begun at a 1986 San Francisco beach party, grew into a Nevada desert city?

Bonnaroo, launched in 2002, became one of the biggest summer festivals touring hippies attend.

Which two authors argue that the personal computer and the internet have roots in the hippie ethos?

Brand, a Merry Prankster, went on to create the Whole Earth Catalog.

Which Coen Brothers character inspired the mock-serious 'Dudeist' philosophy?

Dudeism blends Taoism and Epicurus in the style of the neo-hippie played by Jeff Bridges.

Which Norman Mailer piece in The Village Voice used the word 'hippies' as early as April 1961?

Malcolm X's autobiography says the word described a certain kind of white man in 1940s Harlem.

Which LA boutique owner has been called 'perhaps the first hippie anywhere'?

His 'freakers' danced at Sunset Strip clubs and toured with the Byrds in 1965.

What were Mexican hippies known as, forming a movement called La Onda?

La Onda means 'the Wave'.

Which couple first organized the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in 1963, around which a hippie lifestyle grew?

Families travelled in trucks and buses between Southern and Northern California faire sites.

Roughly how many people attended the Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York, in August 1969?

Performers included Canned Heat, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead.