Spring 1942 - The Office of Strategic Services convenes a committee to oversee the search for a truth drug
April 16, 1943 - Hofmann accidentally discovers the hallucinogenic effects of LSD
April 19, 1943 - Hofmann undertakes the first self-experiment with LSD
September 1945 - OSS disbanded
October 1945 - US Navy Technical Mission reports on Nazi mescaline experiments at the Dachau concentration camp
1947 - CIA formed; U.S. Navy initiates mescaline studies under the auspices of Project Chatter
1947 - First report on LSD appears in a Swiss pharmacological journal
1948 - CIA authorized to undertake covert operations
1949 - Dr. Max Rinkel brings LSD to the United States from Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Switzerland and initiates work with LSD in Boston; Nick Bercel commences LSD study in Los Angeles
1950 - CIA launches Project Bluebird
May 1950 - First article about LSD appears in the American Psychiatric Journal
1951 - Captain Al Hubbard turns on to LSD
August 1951 - The CIA's Inspection & Security Staff initiates the Artichoke Project
October 21, 1951 - First documented evidence of CIA experimentation with LSD
1952 - Dr. Humphry Osmond discloses similarity between mescaline and adrenaline molecule; begins experiments with hallucinogenic at a hospital in Saskatchewan
December 1952 - George Hunter White, on loan from the Federal Narcotics Bureau, begins administering LSD to unwitting U.S. citizens at a CIA safehouse in Greenwich Village
January 1953 - Harold Blauer dies of an overdose of MDA during an Army-sponsored drug experiment
April 13, 1953 - The CIA's Technical Services Staff initiates the MK-ULTRA Project
1953 - Dr. Humphry Osmond begins treating alcoholics with LSD
May 1953 - Aldous Huxley's first mescaline experience
November 1953 - Army biochemist Frank Olsen commits suicide after CIA doses him with LSD
1954 - CIA begins Operation MK-PILOT at Lexingon Narcotics Hospital
1954 - Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception published
mid-1954 - Eli Lilly synthesizes LSD at the CIA's behest
1955 - Aldous Huxley's first LSD trip; the publication of Huxley's Heaven and Hell
1955- Army begins testing LSD at Edgewood arsenal
1956? - Dr. Humphry Osmond coins the word "psychedelic"
May 1957 - Life magazine published R. Gordon Wasson's account of his magic mushroom experience
1958 - Army begins BZ experiments
1959 - Josiah Macy Foundation sponsors major scientific congress on LSD
1959 - Allen Ginsberg tries LSD for the first time
1960 - American Indians granted sanctioned use of peyote as a religious matter
Summer 1960 - Timothy Leary turns on to magic mushrooms in Mexico
1961 - US Army initiates LSD interrogations under Operation Third Chance in Western Europe
1962 - U.S. Army launches Operation Derby Hat in Asia
1962 - The Gamblers, a California surfing band, release a song "LSD-25"; underground LSD appears on both coasts; FDA makes first LSD bust
1962 - Dr. Alexander Shulgin records the effects of MMDA ("ecstasy")
1962 - The superhallucinogen BZ becomes part of the US Army's standardized chemical warfare arsenal
1962 - The CIA withdraws support for above-ground LSD research studies
1962 - Congress passes new drug safety regulations and the FDA designates LSD an experimental drug and restricts research
1963 - Williams Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg publish The Yage Letters
May 1963 - Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert fired from Harvard
November 22, 1963 - Aldous Huxley dies shortly after JFK assassination
1964 - Army begins using BZ gas in Vietnam
Summer 1964 - Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' cross-country bus trip
Fall 1964 - Berkeley Free Speech Movement
February 1965 - First big surge of street acid; the assassination of Malcolm X; US begins sustained bombing of North Vietnam
April 1965 - First big SDS march on Washington
1965 - Drug Abuse Control Amendment; LSD research further restricted
1965 - Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited
October 16, 1965 - First Family Dog acid rock dance in San Francisco
1965 - CIA phases out MK-ULTRA, begins MK-SEARCH
January 1966 - The Trips Festival in San Francisco
March 1966 - Life magazine publishes "LSD: The Mind Drug That Got Out of Control"
April 1966 - Sandoz stops supplying LSD to research scientists
April 1966 - G. Gordon Liddy raids the Millbrook estate
Spring 1966 - Senate Hearings about LSD
1966 - Black Panther Party formed
October 6, 1966 - California bans LSD, Love Pageant Rally in the Haight
January 14, 1967 - Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park
1967 - Joint FDA/NIMH Psychotomimetic Advisory Committee formed with strong input from CIA-linked doctors
June 1967 - Monterey Pop Festival
June 1967 - The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Summer 1967 - "Summer of Love"; STP appears on the blackmarket
October 21, 1967 - March on the Pentagon
1967 - Joint CIA-Army drug research program codenamed OFTEN/MK-CHICKWIT
January 1, 1968 - Yippie!
1968 - LSD possession declared a misdemeanor, sale a felony; the British Wootton Report declares marijuana to be relatively harmless
Spring 1968 - Student unrest at Columbia University
March 31, 1968 - LBJ announces he won't seek re-election
April 4, 1968 - Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated
May 1968 - The Sorbonne uprising in Paris
June 5, 1968 - Senator Robert Kennedy assassinated
June 1969 - SDS unravels
Summer of 1969 - Orange sunshine debuts; Ronald Stark moves in on the illicit acid trade
August 1969 - Woodstock rock festival
Fall 1969 - Operation Intercept; huge antiwar demonstrations around the country
December 1969 - Altamont rock concert; the Manson killings
February 1970 - Leary convicted and jailed
September 12, 1970 - Leary escapes from prison
Spring 1970 - Jackson State and Kent State killings
1970 - LSD becomes a Schedule I drug
1971 - Windowpane acid first appears
August 1972 - Operation BEL
January 17, 1973 - Leary arrested in Afghanistan
November 1973 - Hitchcock turns state evidence to convict Tim Scully and Nick Sand
1973 - MK-SEARCH terminated; OFTEN/MK-CHICKWIT phased out
September 18, 1974 - PILL (People Investigating Leary's Lies) conference
1975 - Rockefeller Commission reports on CIA hallucinogenic drug experiments
February 1975 - Ronald Stark arrested in Bologna, Italy
1976 - Church Committee reports on CIA and Army drug experiments
1976 - Leary released from jail
Spring 1977 - Operation Julie bust in England
Fall 1977 - Senate hearings on MK-ULTRA
February 1979 - LSD reunion in Los Angeles