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If you're going to San Francisco,
be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...
If you're going to San Francisco,
Summertime will be a love-in there.

Hippies Dancing in the Park

Woodstock '69 and hippies of the 1960s

Hippies Invade Stonehenge (1988)

The sixties were a time of immense change in all areas of public and private life, often referred to as a social revolution global in scale. In the United States, for example, social change was wrought by the American civil rights movement, the rise of feminism and gay rights, invention of the microchip and formulation of Moore's Law, and even the rise of neoconservatism. The "Sixties" has become synonymous with all the new, exciting, radical, subversive and/or dangerous (depending on one's viewpoint) events and trends of the period, which continued to develop in the 1970s, 1980s and beyond. In Africa the 60s were a period of radical change as countries gained independence from their European colonial rulers, only for this rule to be replaced in many cases by civil war or corrupt dictatorships. Government Several Western governments turned to the left in the early-1960s. In the United States President John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960. Italy formed its first left of center government in March 1962 with a coalition of Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and moderate Republicans. Socialists joined the ruling bloc in December 1963. The 1960s were marked by several notable assassinations, including Kennedy's assassination in 1963, and Malcolm X in 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. First Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, is assassinated by Belgian/Congolese firing squad on January 17, 1961 First South Vietnamese president Ngo Dihn Diem (Ngô Ðìhn Dim) is assassinated in coup d'etat on November 2, 1963. US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated on November 22, 1963 in his car during a parade Malcolm X is assassinated on February 21, 1965 The assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968. The assassination of presidential candidate Senator Robert F. Kennedy on June 6, 1968. Anti-War Movement A mass movement began rising in opposition to the Vietnam War, ending in the massive Moratorium protests in 1969, and also the movement of resistance to conscription (the Draft) for the war. The antiwar movement was initially based on the older 1950s Peace movement heavily influenced by the American Communist Party, but by the mid-1960s it outgrew this and became a broad-based mass movement centered on the universities and churches: one kind of protest was called a "sit-in." Other terms included the Draft, draft dodger, conscientious objector, and Vietnam vet. Voter age-limits were challenged by the phrase: "If you're old enough to die for your country, you're old enough to vote." Popular music entered an era of "all hits" as numerous singers released recordings, beginning in the 1950s, as 45-rpm "singles" (with another on the flip side), and radio stations tended to play only the most popular of the wide variety of records being made. Also, bands tended to record only the best of their songs as a chance to become a hit record. The developments of the Motown Sound, "folk rock" and the British Invasion of bands from the U.K. (The Beatles, The Dave Clark Five, The Rolling Stones ,and so on), are major examples of American listeners expanding from the folksinger, doo-wop and saxophone sounds of the 1950s and evolving to include psychedelia music. The rise of an alternative culture among affluent youth, creating a huge market for rock and blues music produced by drug-culture, influenced bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Doors, and also for radical music in the folk tradition pioneered by Bob Dylan, The Mamas and the Papas, and Joan Baez in the United States, and in England, Donovan was helping to create folk rock. The Jimi Hendrix Experience release two albums in the United Kingdom (U.K.) during 1967 Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love that innovate both guitar, trio and recording techniques. The Beatles release the seminal 'concept' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in June 1967. Bob Dylan releases the Country Rock album John Wesley Harding in December 1967, making the genre acceptable. The Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 was the apex of the so-called Summer of Love. The Band releases the roots rock album Music from Big Pink in 1968. The Rolling Stones film the TV special Rock and Roll Circus in December 1968 which was never broadcast during its contemporary time. Considered for decades as a fabled 'lost' performance until released in North America on Laserdisc and VHS in 1995. Features performances from The Who; The Dirty Mac featuring John Lennon, Eric Clapton and Mitch Mitchell; Jethro Tull and Taj Mahal. The Who release and tour the first rock opera Tommy in 1969. Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band release the avant garde album Trout Mask Replica in 1969. The Woodstock Festival, and four months later, the Altamont Free Concert in 1969. 1960 - The first working laser was demonstrated in May by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories. 1961 - First human spaceflight to orbit the Earth: Yuri Gagarin, Vostok 1. 1962 - First trans-Atlantic satellite broadcast via the Telstar satellite. 1962 - The first computer video game, Spacewar!, is invented. 1963 - The first geosynchronous communications satellite, Syncom 2 is launched. 1963 - Touch-Tone telephones introduced. 1964 - The first successful Minicomputer, Digital Equipment Corporation&s 12-bit PDP-8, is marketed. 1965 - Sony markets the CV-2000, the first home video tape recorder. 1966 - The Soviet Union launches Luna 10, which later becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon. 1967 - First heart transplantation operation. 1967 - PAL and SECAM broadcast color TV systems start publicly transmitting in Europe. 1968 - First humans to leave Earth's gravity influence and orbit another world: Apollo 8. 1968 - The first public demonstration of the computer mouse, the paper paradigm Graphical user interface, video conferencing, teleconferencing, email, and hypertext. 1969 - Arpanet, the research-oriented prototype of the Internet, was introduced. 1969 - First humans to walk on the Moon: Apollo 11. 1969 - CCD invented at AT&T Bell Labs, used as the electronic imager in still and video cameras.

Conclusion of a war: A North Vietnamese Army T-54 tank breaking into the grounds of the Presidential Palace, April 30, 1975. The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the American War, occurred from 1959 to April 30, 1975. The term Vietnam Conflict is often used to refer to events which took place between 1959 and April 30, 1975. The war was fought between the Communist-supported Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States supported Republic of Vietnam. It concluded with the defeat and failure of the United States foreign policy in Vietnam. Over 1.4 million military personnel were killed in the war (only 6% were members of the United States armed forces), while estimates of civilian fatalities range from 2 to 5.1 million. On April 30, 1975, the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon fell to the communist forces of North Vietnam, effectively ending the Vietnam War. The Soviet Union and the United States were involved in the space race. This led to an increase in spending on science and technology during this period. The space race heated up when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth and President Kennedy announced Project Apollo in 1961. The Soviets and Americans were then involved in a race to put a man on the Moon before the decade was over. America won the race when it placed the first men on the Moon: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, in July 1969. Popular American movies of the 1960s include Psycho, Breakfast at Tiffany's, To Kill a Mockingbird, My Fair Lady, The Pink Panther, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb; The Sound of Music; Doctor Zhivago, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Bonnie and Clyde; Cool Hand Luke; The Graduate; Rosemary's Baby; Midnight Cowboy; Head; Medium Cool; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Easy Rider. In Europe, Art Cinema gains wider distribution and sees movements like la Nouvelle Vague (The French New Wave); Cinéma Vérité documentary movement in Canada, France and the United States; and the high-point of Italian filmmaking with Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and Pier Paulo Pasolini making some of their most known films during this period. Notable films from this period include: 8½; L'avventura; La notte; Blowup; Satyricon; Accattone; The Gospel According to St. Matthew; Theorem; Breathless;Vivre sa vie; Contempt; Bande à part; Alphaville; Pierrot le fou; Week End; Shoot the Piano Player; Jules and Jim; Fahrenheit 451;Last Year at Marienbad;Dont Look Back; Chronique d'un été; Titicut Follies; High School; Salesman; La Jetée; Warrendale The sixties were about experimentation. With the explosion of light-weight and affordable cameras, the underground avant-garde film movement thrived. Canada's Michael Snow, Americans Kenneth Anger. Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol, and Jack Smith. Notable films in this genre are: Dog Star Man; Scorpio Rising; Wavelength; Chelsea Girls;Blow Job; Vinyl; Flaming Creatures. The marriage of music and movies keeps the spirit of the sixties alive today. Movies about the era are incredibly popular. The Vietnam War is the topic most often considered, with movies like Apocalypse Now; Platoon; and Born on the Fourth of July. The influence of the counterculture and Civil Rights is common as well, as seen in movies like Across the Universe; Forrest Gump; and Malcolm X. The subject material of sixties movies is coupled with, and improved by, the music of the era. The integration of the music into a movie makes it seem more realistic and true to the time period. Motown Record Corporation founded in 1960. It's first Top Ten hit was "Shop Around" by the Miracles in 1960. "Shop Around" peaked at number-two on the Billboard Hot 100, and was Motown's first million-selling record. The Marvelettes scored Motown Record Corporation's first US #1 pop hit, "Please Mr. Postman" in 1961. Motown would score 110 Billboard Top-Ten hits between 1961 and 1971. The Beatles went to America in 1964, spearheading the start of the British Invasion. Bob Dylan goes electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The Beach Boys release Pet Sounds in 1966, ushering in the era of album orientated rock. Bob Dylan is called "Judas" by an audience member during the legendary Manchester Free Trade Hall concert, the start of the Bootleg recording industry follows, with recordings of this concert circulating for 30 years wrongly labeled as The Royal Albert Hall Concert before a legitimate release in 1998 as The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert.

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