TIME OUT OF MIND: A TIMELINE OF THE COUNTERCULTURE -
This is my own copy, updated, of my counterculture timeline that
I donated to be put on the WELL gopher from about 1993 to 2005.
This was the first sixties timeline on the web, and was created because in
1993 I could not find any other. Bravo to all that have come after.
May a million flowers bloom.
Last major update Oct 2005 - Feb 2006.
Corrections are still being added.
~ Judith Goldsmith
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A BABY BOOMER'S CHRONOLOGY OF MODERN TIMES;
A HIPPIE HISTORY OF THE SIXTIES
Beginnings to 1693: Feudalism and the Inquisition
The first Democracies: 1694-1829
Democracy Adjusted: 1830-1879
The Progressive Period: 1880 to 1913
The Early War Years: 1914 to 1932
The Later War Years 1933--1953
Civil Rights Battles 1954-1959
The Early Sixties: Folk Music and Idealism
1960-1963
The Early Sixties: British Rock and
The Free Speech Movement 1964-1965
The Early Sixties: Hippies in the Haight
and Vietnam War Protests 1965-1966
The High Sixties: Something's Happening Here
1966 - 1967
The High Sixties: Magical Mystery Tour
1967 - 1968
1968 - 1969
The High Sixties: Moratorium and The Strike 1969 - 1971
The Late Sixties: Keepin' on Truckin'
as the US's False Prosperity Dissolves
1971-1972
The Seventies: The Watergate Investigation Years 1972-1974
The Seventies: Keep on Keepin' On
1974-1976
The Seventies: Punks and Anti-Nuclear
as the Economy Declines 1977-1979
The Seventies: Global Marketplace and Deindustrialization 1979 - 1981
The Eighties: Nuclear Freeze and
US a Debtor Nation 1982 - 1984
The Eighties: End to Apartheid in South Africa & Iran-Contra 1985 - 1987
The Eighties: End of the Cold War
1987 - 1991 and a peek at the future
2010 on: You write this page
00-1960 1960-1975 1975-1990 ]
The old pages have been removed until Google stops picking them up as its main link.]
NEW (July 2007): Los Angeles LA Fine Arts Squad murals - a memorial
SOME FAVORITE WRITING ABOUT THE 1960s PERIOD
BOOKS AND MOVIES ABOUT COUNTERCULTURE
Pages linked to the Timeline
A NOTE TO STUDENTS: IT IS UNWISE TO USE ANY DATES IN THESE TIMELINES
IN ANY OTHER MATERIAL WITHOUT COROBORATING THEM THROUGH OTHER SOURCES;
ATLASES AND DATEBOOKS AND OTHER OFFICIAL SOURCES HAVE FACT-CHECKERS
EMPLOYED TO DO THIS; I HAVE ONLY ME, AND WHAT I HAVE TIME FOR.
THESE TIMELINES ARE NOT "DOCUMENTS OF RECORD" AND CERTAINLY
HAVE INCORRECT INFORMATION, AND DUPLICATING THAT INFORMATION
WITHOUT CHECKING IS JUST SPREADING POSSIBLE MIS-INFORMATION MORE WIDELY.
When I was in high school in the 1960s, no one would talk about World War I and World War II and the years that led up to them and between them, and what followed. I eagerly read what it said in my tenth grade history book, because we completely skipped over it in class. I wondered why we didn't get taught about it. Was it too controversial or too unpleasant? But how were we supposed to know how things had come to be the way they were in our own lifetimes? Then I realized that those older than me did not think of these times as history because they themselves had lived through them.
It's sad how little the counterculture knows of its own history. Saul Landau bemoans the fact that, while in Europe students learn the history of recent struggles from those who lived through them, in the U.S. every new freshman college class, for instance, has no idea how recently the liberties it enjoys - co-ed living, free speech, and to be politically active, etc. - were won, and what it took to accomplish this.
The timeline has gaps all over the place, and details I have not yet fully checked out. I'm sure it has all kinds of personal biases, including being biased much more to the U.S. and to the white middle-class than it should be. Help fix it. Make suggestions. (Please note: the terms "negro" and "Indian" have been used until the date when substitutes for these terms were proposed. Also, I've been very understated about the punk movement and Gen X, mostly because, if I get into those in detail, I'll never finish, but also, after all, because I was a sixties person. If you think there are crucial dates/events from those cultures that this has to have, let me know, but really, someone who is familiar with them should do another whole timeline for them. Somebody please do. We need chroniclers in this culture.)
I hereby copyright this work, in case I ever find a publisher for it. But you may download it, copy it, and GIVE it to friends, as long as no money is ever exchanged for it. Like Bruce Sterling says, you don't own it, it's just passing through you. Have fun, and bury me in e-mail about what you think should be included or changed. This could become a collective memory if we all participate.
Please send your e-mail to my account at: mareev [at} well [dot] com and put "Timeline" in your e-mail title, so I'll be easily able to sort it out. After all, I'm still trying to get a book written. :^)