50 free Hippie trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
For a movement that was less than a fifth of one percent of Americans in 1968, the hippies left an outsized mark: the festivals, the fashion, the language, and a peace symbol borrowed from British nuclear protesters. This quiz traces the story from the beatniks of North Beach to the Haight, the Acid Tests, the Human Be-In and the Summer of Love, then out along the Hippie trail to Kathmandu and forward to Burning Man. It suits a 60s-themed party, a history class, or anyone who has ever wondered where the word hippie actually came from. The early questions are ones most people can guess; the later ones cover Chet Helms, Owsley Stanley, Der Wandervogel and the man some call the first hippie of all. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia article on hippies, and each question links to the sentence that supports it.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01From which older slang word did the term "hippie" derive?
Hipster
Both hip and hep were 1940s jive slang for 'sophisticated, currently fashionable'.
Q 02Which San Francisco district became the centre of hippie culture?
Haight-Ashbury
Around 15,000 hippies had moved into the Haight by June 1966, drawn by cheap Victorian apartments.
Q 03Whose September 1965 San Francisco Examiner article was the first West Coast use of "hippie" in print?
Michael Fallon
He was writing about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse and the beatniks who had moved from North Beach to the Haight.
Q 04Which earlier movement did the hippies inherit their tradition of cultural dissent from?
The Beat Generation
Beats like Allen Ginsberg crossed over and became fixtures of the hippie and anti-war scenes.
Q 05Which gathering in Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967, drew 20,000 to 30,000 hippies?
The Human Be-In
Timothy Leary coined 'Turn on, tune in, drop out' while speaking there.
Q 06What name was given to the 1967 season when 100,000 young people descended on San Francisco?
The Summer of Love
An estimated 100,000 young people descended on the city.
Q 07Whose hit song urged listeners heading to San Francisco to wear flowers in their hair?
Scott McKenzie
John Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas wrote it; the song gave hippies the nickname 'Flower Children'.
Q 08Which June 1967 event introduced the rock festival to a wide audience and kicked off the Summer of Love?
Monterey International Pop
The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain festival ran the weekend before.
Q 09Which novelist led the Merry Pranksters on their bus trips?
Ken Kesey
Their adventures fill Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Q 10What was the name of the Merry Pranksters' famous school bus?
Furthur
Beat hero Neal Cassady was at the wheel for the 1964 cross-country trip.
Q 11Which Tom Wolfe book chronicled Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters?
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
It remains one of the enduring literary artefacts of the era.
Q 12Which band, originally billed as the Warlocks, played Kesey's Acid Tests often as high as the audience?
Grateful Dead
The Acid Tests of 1965 are counted as the start of the hippie music-festival tradition.
Q 13Which Nevada mining-town venue hosted the 1965 'Red Dog Experience' with the Charlatans and Big Brother?
The Red Dog Saloon, Virginia City
Q 21Which political offshoot, led by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, nominated a pig for president in 1968?
The Yippies
They also tried to levitate the Pentagon at a 1967 war protest.
Q 22Which Berkeley plot, planted by hippies in 1969, was ordered destroyed by Governor Reagan?
People's Park
The National Guard occupied Berkeley for two weeks and hippies planted flowers under the slogan 'Let a Thousand Parks Bloom'.
Q 23Which commune, led by Wavy Gravy, provided security at Woodstock?
The Hog Farm
Over 500,000 people came to Bethel, New York, in August 1969.
Bill Ham staged his first primitive light shows there.
Q 14Which chemist supplied much of the LSD behind the early San Francisco scene?
Owsley Stanley
He lived in Berkeley in 1965 and helped organise the Trips Festival.
Q 15On what date did California make LSD illegal, prompting the Love Pageant Rally?
October 6, 1966
The Grateful Dead played the rally, held to show that LSD users were neither criminals nor mentally ill.
Q 16Which street-theatre group ran free stores and declared the 'death of the hippie' in 1967?
The Diggers
They named themselves after the 17th-century English Diggers led by Gerrard Winstanley.
Q 17Which promoter turned the Family Dog into Family Dog Productions and ran the Avalon Ballroom?
Chet Helms
Bill Graham ran the Fillmore; Helms later exported the scene to Denver.
Q 18Which 1966 Los Angeles clashes over a 10 p.m. loitering law inspired 'For What It's Worth'?
The Sunset Strip curfew riots
Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda were among the protesters at Pandora's Box.
Q 19Which magazine's July 7, 1967 cover story was titled "The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture"?
Time
Its guidelines for the hippie code began 'Do your own thing'.
Q 20Which Beatle visited the Haight, found it 'a haven for dropouts' and gave up LSD?
George Harrison
Sgt. Pepper had just been embraced by the movement for its psychedelic imagery.
Q 24Which December 1969 festival, 'Woodstock West', ended in a fatal stabbing by Hells Angels?
Altamont Free Concert
Meredith Hunter, 18, was killed during the Rolling Stones' set.
Q 25Roughly what share of the US population were 'core visible hippies' in 1968?
Just under 0.2%
The subculture dwindled by the mid-1970s even as its style went mainstream.
Q 26Which Beatles song is cited as expressing the gentle hippie ideology of peace and personal freedom?
All You Need Is Love
Hippies called the dominant culture 'the Establishment', 'Big Brother' or 'the Man'.
Q 27Which German youth movement of the 1890s-1900s is regarded as a 'proto-hippie' precursor?
Der Wandervogel
Its 'wandering birds' rejected urbanisation for folk music, creative dress and hiking; some later opened America's first health-food stores.
Q 28Which 1948 Nat King Cole hit was inspired by a group of California back-to-the-land bohemians?
Nature Boy
Songwriter eden ahbez based it on Gypsy Boots, who popularised yoga and organic food.
Q 29Which psychologist founded the League for Spiritual Discovery, declaring LSD its sacrament?
Timothy Leary
He hoped a freedom-of-religion argument would keep the drug legal for adherents; it did not work.
Q 30Which Beatles song was inspired by Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience?
Tomorrow Never Knows
John Lennon wrote it for Revolver.