This June 17, 1967, photo shows the scene on the football field at Monterey Peninsula College where over 20,000 people camped during the Monterey Pop Festival in Monterey, Calif. Before Burning Man and Bonnaroo, Coachella and Lollapalooza, Glastonbury and Governors Island, there was Monterey Pop. Fifty years ago in June, the three-day concert in the San Francisco Bay area gave birth to the "Summer of Love'' and paved the way for today's popular festivals.
Timothy Leary addresses a crowd of hippies at the "Human Be-In" that he helped organize in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Calif., on Jan. 14, 1967. Leary told the crowd to "turn on, tune in and drop out." The event was a prelude to the "Summer of Love," which brought the hippie experience into the American mainstream.
A group of hippies greets the sunrise with music from a hilltop in San Francisco, Calif., on Oct. 6, 1967.
People keep a large ball, painted to represent a world globe, in the air during a gathering at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, to celebrate the summer solstice on June 21, 1967, day one of "Summer of Love." City officials have rejected a permit for a planned free concert intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the famed Summer of Love in Golden Gate Park that had been planned for June 2017.
Jimi Hendrix performs at the Monterey Pop Festival in Monterey, Calif., on June 18, 1967.
Judy Smith wears face paint and flowers in her hair as she and others gather at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on June 21, 1967. Fifty years ago, throngs of American youth descended on San Francisco to join a cultural revolution.
A man carries a guitar, a loaf of bread and a knapsack as he walks down the street away from the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco on Oct. 16, 1967.
People gather in the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco on April 13, 1967. In 2017, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, which had been ground zero for the counterculture, has become a place where two-bedroom apartments rent for $5,000 a month. San Francisco remains a magnet for young people, but even those earning six-figure Silicon Valley salaries complain about the cost of living.
People parade up and down the streets of the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco on April 3, 1967. They came for the music, the mind-bending drugs, to resist the Vietnam War and 1960s American orthodoxy, or simply to escape summer boredom. And they left an enduring legacy. Fifty years ago, throngs of American youth descended on San Francisco to join a cultural revolution.
Two women warm up with blankets at the Monterey Pop Festival in Monterey, Calif., on June 17, 1967.
This was the scene at the Monterey Fairgrounds during the Monterey Pop Festival in Monterey, Calif., on June 18, 1967, when fishnet stockings were popular.
Nation & World 
