A Hippie Geography Lesson Trivia Quiz

Answer: San Francisco

In the summer of 1967, up to 100,000 young people flocked to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in search of an alternative to the conventional lifestyle, politics, and morality of what they saw as a bankrupt establishment.

Answer: West

I really did this and the desert sun makes these tough places for a hitchhiker to be dropped. Both are in San Bernardino County, which has the largest area of any county in the U.S., larger in fact than nine existing U.S. states. Go to the northern tip of the county to enter Death Valley, the hottest, driest, and lowest point in the U.S.

Answer: Golden Gate Park

Golden Gate Park was a central gathering place for the Haight-Ashbury hippies and the site for many photographs and video clips that would keep the Summer of Love alive in the popular imagination.

Answer: South

Go south to get from San Francisco to Monterey. The festival, in which all artists performed for free and all proceeds went to charity, also included Janis Joplin, The Mamas and the Papas, Buffalo Springfield, and many others.

Answer: An LSD trip

"Purple Haze" was one of the many forms of LSD available at the time. Hendrix released his song of that title during the Summer of Love (the single was released in the U.S. in June 1967). At Woodstock two years later, Hendrix would play "Purple Haze" just after his famous version of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Answer: St. Louis, Missouri

The arch had been in the works for decades but was finally dedicated on May 25, 1968. At 630 feet, it is the world's tallest monument.

Answer: Bethel, NY

Bethel is actually about 50 miles southwest of Woodstock, NY. Organizers were hoping for 180,000 but got about 400,000. Though ill-prepared for such a number, things came off well by most standards. There were two deaths (one an overdose and one an accident with a tractor) and two births, and peace and love prevailed.

Answer: Ohio

The event was at Kent State University in Ohio. In the aftermath, worldwide publicity and a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by John Filo further inflamed anti-war sentiment. Within a few weeks, Neil Young immortalized the incident in the song, "Ohio."

Answer: President Nixon has resigned.

It was in 1970 that The Beatles broke up and Jimi Hendrix died. Robert Kennedy was shot in 1968. Watergate aside, many hippies would like to think that their countercultural "revolution" contributed in some small way to Nixon's political fall.

Answer: Elvis Presley

Elvis died at Graceland in Memphis, not far from the Arkansas border. He was not much associated with the psychedelic rock (or the politically radical folk rock) of the hippies, but his death certainly marked the end of an era (and hippies, like most people of the day, had diverse enough listening habits to pop the King onto the record player from time to time).