Counterculture

From Wikipedia:Beat Generation

The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized throughout the **1950s**. Central elements of Beat culture are rejection of standard narrative values, spiritual quest, exploration of American and Eastern religions, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration. Allen Ginsberg's Howl (1956), William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959) and Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957) are among the best known examples of Beat literature.

From Wikipedia:History of the hippie movement

The Beat Generation, especially those associated with the San Francisco Renaissance, gradually gave way to the **1960s** era counterculture, accompanied by a shift in terminology from "beatnik" to "freak" and "hippie." The hippie subculture began its development as a youth movement in the United States during the early 1960s and then developed around the world. Many of the original Beats remained active participants, notably Allen Ginsberg, who became a fixture of the anti-war movement. On the other hand, Jack Kerouac broke with Ginsberg and criticized the 1960s protest movements as an "excuse for spitefulness."

From Wikipedia:Counterculture of the 1960s

The era essentially commenced in earnest with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in **November 1963**.

After the **January 14, 1967** Human Be-In in San Francisco organized by artist Michael Bowen, the media's attention on culture was fully activated. In 1967 Scott McKenzie's rendition of the song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" brought as many as 100,000 young people from all over the world to celebrate San Francisco's "Summer of Love."

From Wikipedia:Manson Family

Upon his release from prison on **March 21, 1967**, Manson established himself as a guru in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, which during 1967's "Summer of Love" was emerging as the signature hippie locale. He strongly implied that he was Christ; he often told a story envisioning himself on the cross with the nails in his feet and hands. He began using the alias "Charles Willis Manson." He often said it very slowly ("Charles' Will Is Man's Son") — implying that his will was the same as that of the Son of Man.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination took place on **April 4, 1968**. For some time, Manson had been saying that blacks would soon rise up in rebellion in America's cities. Manson explained that this had also been predicted by the Beatles. The White Album songs (released on **22 November 1968**), he declared, told it all in code. In fact, he maintained (or would soon maintain), the album was directed at the Family, an elect group that was being instructed to preserve the worthy from the impending disaster.

In early **January 1969**, the Family moved to a canary-yellow home in Canoga Park, not far from the Spahn Ranch. Because this locale would allow the group to remain "submerged beneath the awareness of the outside world", Manson called it the Yellow Submarine, another Beatles reference. There, Family members prepared for the impending apocalypse, which Manson had termed "Helter Skelter", after the song of that name. Manson had preached to his Family would happen in the summer of 1969.

Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on **20 July 1969**.
Gary Hinman supplied Beausoleil with a batch of bad mescaline that Beausoleil in turn sold to the Straight Satans motorcycle gang. When the bikers demanded their money back, Manson ordered Beausoleil to Hinman's residence to get the money. Hinman refused to pay. Manson arrived and proceeded to slice off a part of Hinman's ear with a sword. Atkins and Brunner stitched it up with dental floss afterwards. Manson then ordered Beausoleil to kill Hinman and told him to make it look as if the crime had been committed by black revolutionaries. Beausoleil stabbed Hinman to death on **July 27, 1969**.

They gained national notoriety after the murder of actress Sharon Tate and four others on **August 9, 1969** by Tex Watson and three other members of the Family, acting under the instructions of Charles Manson. According to Bobby Beausoleil, it was actually enacted to convince police that the killers of Gary Hinman were in fact still at large.

Woodstock was a music festival on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York from **August 15–18, 1969** which attracted an audience of more than 400,000.

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture-era rock concert **December 6, 1969** in northern California. The event is best known for considerable violence, including the stabbing death of Meredith Hunter, two accidental deaths caused by a hit-and-run car accident, and one accidental death by LSD-induced drowning in an irrigation canal.

From Wikipedia:Counterculture of the 1960s

The counterculture became absorbed into the popular culture with the termination of US combat military involvement in Southeast Asia and the end of the draft in **1973**, and ultimately with the resignation of President Richard Nixon in **August 1974**.