1938 - Dr. Albert Hofmann synthesizes LSD-25

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

taken from Acid Dreams The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond