Allen Ginsberg born Newark, New Jersey.

Neal Cassady born Salt Lake City, Utah.

Gregory Corso born in New York.

Gary Snyder born San Francisco, California.

William Burroughs joins army but discharged for psychological reasons

Moondog gets a scholarship to study in Memphis.

Nico and her mother stay with her grandfather at Lubbenau.

Moondog goes to New York and meets Artur Rodzinski, Leonard Bernstein, and Toscanini. Bows to kiss Toscanini's hand but Toscanini pulls it away saying,' I am not a beautiful woman. Also meets Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman.

Herbert Huncke, a burglar, introduces Burroughs to heroin. Remains a steady user until 1957. He also trades in a Thompson Sub Machine Gun. Also there was pickpocket Phil White, safe cracker Little Jack Melody and his prostitute girlfriend Vicki Russell (daughter of a judge).

Carr and Kerouac try to sign on board ship but get into an argument and are thrown off.

Lucien Carr stabs David Kammerer (who was in love with him) to death. Serves two years. Kerouac held as an accessory but released.

Kerouac marries Edie Parker, friend of Joan Vollmer Adams (Burroughs). The marriage lasts two months.

Bukowski moves to St Louis.

Bukowski returns to Philadelphia.

Kerouac begins writing "The Town and the City" and also meets Neal Cassady.

Cassady has brief sexual relationship with Ginsberg.

Corso sent to prison on a robbery charge. Writes poetry while inside.

Bukowski returns to LA. Meets Jane Cooney Baker. They become drinking and sexual partners.

Cassady meets Carolyn Robinson. Gives her Benzedrine, seduces her, introduces her to Ginsberg then nips off to see LuAnne.

Kerouac begins his cross-country journeys with Cassady and makes initial attempts to write "On the Road".

Burroughs moves to Texas with Joan. Builds an orgone machine. Is visited by Cassady and Kerouac (described in "On the Road").

Moondog begins to call himself Moondog, aftera dog he owned who howled at the moon.

Ginsberg sees William Blake (the dead 18/19^th century poet) in his apartment. Inspires later poem "The Lion for Real".

Ginsberg, Jack Melody and Vicki Russell involved in a car crash in a stolen car. All arrested, along with Hunke.

Ginsberg commits himself to psychiatric hospital to escape imprisonment. Meets fellow inmate Carl Solomon, who is schizophrenic but inspirational.

Huncke arrested for robbery and imprisoned for five years.

Burroughs moves to Mexico.

Moondog plays tomtom and flute at a Sun Dance held by the Blackfoot in Idaho.

Kerouac marries Joan Haverty. This marriage is also short lived.

Cassady bigamously marries Diana Hansen in New York, who bears his child. He then runs back to Carolyn in Denver.

Gregory Corso meets Allen Ginsberg after serving three years in Dannemora. He is then introduced to Kerouac and Burroughs.

Kerouac writes "Visions of Cody" in New York and San Francisco.

Philip Whalen graduates at Reed College, Portland Oregon and meets Lew Welch and Gary Snyder.

Burroughs shoots and kills his wife Joan in Mexico City.

Nico is raped by US Army sargeant, who is subsequently executed (no documentary evidence).

Burroughs flees Mexico (his lawyer had already fled having also shot someone dead). He is sentenced "in absentia" to two years (suspended). Journeys to the Amazon in search of the legendary drug Yage, said to make its users telepathic. Finds its effects disappointing.

John Clelland Holmes' "Go" is published.

Bukowski gets a "temporary" job at the post office.

Whalen begins one of three summers as fire lookout at Mount Baker National Forest.

Burroughs "Junkie" published as an Ace double-book with "Narcotic Agent" by Maurice Helbrandt. He settles in Tangiers

Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded City Lights Books in San Francisco.

LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) enlists in the air force.

Nico begins modelling in Berlin at age 15.

Ginsberg moves to San Francisco.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded City Lights Press - publishing Kenneth Patchen, Ginsberg, Corso and Kerouac.

Ferlinghetti's poems published (by himself) - "Pictures of the Gone World" - in the City Lights Pocket Poets series.

Ginsberg hitches up with Peter Orlovsky (right hand with brother Lafcadio).

Bukowski quits "temporary" job. Attends racetracks. Begins to write poetry. Enters into correspondence with Barbara Frye, who runs a poetry journal. Offers to marry her. Frye journeys to LA. Bukowski discovers her to be good looking, sexually insatiable and a millionaire. They marry but she sues for divorce. He is allowed to keep the car.

Nico moves to Paris. Works for, among others, Coco Chanel. She later moves to New York to work for Eileen Ford. Takes amphetamines to keep thin. Begins to travel extensively as part of her job. Renames herself Nico, in Ibiza, in memory of a photographer's ex boyfriend.

Six Gallery Poetry reading - hosted by Kenneth Rexroth. Those taking part were Snyder, Whalen, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti and Michael McClure.

Cassady starts relationship with Natalie Jackson and defrauds Carolyn Cassady of $10,000 dollars which he loses at the racetrack.

Snyder moves to Japan. Continues to translate Han-Shan.

Ginsberg's "Howl and Other Poems" published by Ferlinghetti. The poem "Howl" dedicated to Carl Solomon.

Jane Cooney Baker dies.

Burroughs takes apomorphine treatment to cure him of addiction. It lasts about a year.

Kerouac, Ginsberg (with Orlovsky) and Alan Ansen visit Burroughs in Tangier and type up his manuscript. Kerouac suggests a title - "Naked Lunch".

After Tangiers, Ginsberg and Orlovsky travel to Paris, meeting, WH Auden, in Ischia along the way. Auden is not impressed.

Corso travels to France and meets Genet and Henri Micheax (producer of Mescaline induced drawings). Corso is not impressed. He teams up with Ginsberg.

Ferlinghetti on obscenity charges for publishing "Howl and Other Poems".

LeRoi Jones dishonerably discharged from the airforce for being a communist.

Natalie Jackson kills herself. Cassady moves back in with Carolyn the next day.

"Pull My Daisy" beat film issued.

Cassady is sent to prison for drug dealing. Ginsberg visits him. Kerouac does not.

Burroughs meets Ginsberg et al in Paris. "Naked Lunch" published.

Diane Di Prima's first book of poetry "This Kind of Bird Flies Backward" published.

LeRoi Jones and Hettie Cohen co-edit magazine "Yugen". They later marry.

Bukowski re-joins the post office.

Kerouac goes to Big Sur to break his drinking habit. Started to crack up - led to writing of the novel of the same name.

Corso's "The Happy Birthday of Death" published.

Cassady released from prison.

Ginsberg begin his world wide travels (including spells in USSR, Scandinavia, China and Eastern Europe. As his poetry is adopted by the counter culture he allies himself with the protest movement.

Burrough's "Exterminator" published.

Bukowski begins to have some success - "Flower Fist and Bestial Wail" poems published.

Nico is in Italy. Has a part in Fellini's "La Dolce Vita". He considers her too lazy for further work. She takes acting lessons with Lee Strasberg.

Corso writes his only novel - "The American Express".

Burroughs "The Soft Machine" published.

Diane Di Prima and LeRoi Jones launch "Floating Bear", a monthly poetry journal. Both arrested on obscenity charges for publishing a Burroughs essay.

Ginsberg's "Kaddish and Other Poems" published.

LeRoi Jones publishes first book of poems - "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note".

Cassady meets Ken Kesey. Becomes driver for his Merry Pranksters Bus. Ginsberg also becomes involved with Kesey's acid test roadshow.

Burrough's "The Ticket that Exploded" published.

Bukowski's "Run With the Hunted" published.

Diane Di Prima establishes Poets Press.

Burrough's "Nova Express" published.

Bukowski moves in with Frances Smith. Then out again.

Ginsberg crowned Prague May King then expelled by the Czech Police. He is also put on the FBI's Dangerous Security List. Gives poetry readings at the UFO club in London. Appears in Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' film - he is standing in the alley in the background.

Ginsberg and Corso attend "Wholly Communion" poetry, compered by Alexander Trocchi. The audience numbers 5000.

LeRoi Jones divorces Hettie Cohen then moves to Harlem to form the Black Arts Repertory theatre. Publishes first novel - "The System of Dante's Hell".

Poets Press publishes Herbert "Huncke's Journal".

Nico strikes up a relationship with Brian Jones in London. Meets Andrew Loog Oldham, who releases her first single "I'm Not Saying". Has a spell as a singer in the Blue Angel Cocktail Lounge on East 55th Street, New York. Strikes up a relationship with Bob Dylan.

LeRoi Jones moves to Newark and helps elect a black candidate mayor.

Nico meets Andy Warhol. He forces the Velvet Underground to work with her. Lou Reed and John Cale are not pleased. Appears with Velvets as part of Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable and album "The Velvet Underground and Nico". Leaves soon after.

Bukowski begins writing "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" for LA underground journal "Open City".

Ginsberg leads the crowd chanting 'OM' at the San Fransisco Be-In. Gary Snyder also attends.

Nico appears in Andy Warhol's film "Chelsea Girls".

Snyder publishes poems - "The Back Country."

Ginsberg organizes protests against the Vietnam War at the Democratic convention in Chicago. National Guard called out.

Snyder publishes poems - "Earth House Hold (His 1975 collection, "Turtle Island", wins the Pulitzer Prize).

Di Prima's "Memoirs of a Beatnik" published.

Ginsberg attends Woodstock. Wanders onstage during the Who's performance. They are not amused.

Nico releases "Marble Index" album.

After a farcical trial, punctuated by Ginsberg's chanting (Oom Oom) the Chicago conspirators are eventually cleared of conspiracy to riot at the 1968 Democratic convention.

Burrough's "The Last Words of Dutch Schultz" published.

Ginsberg meets the controversial Tibetan guru Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and accepts him as his personal guru. Founds, (with Anne Waldman) the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, at Trungpa's Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Bukowski quits the post office.

Burrough's "The Wild Boys" published.

Bukowski's "Post Office" published. After this volumes of poetry and novels follow, including "Factotum", "Ham on Rye" and "Women".

Moondog disappears from the streets of New York. Settles in Germany.

Nico, now a drug addict, flies to New York in the hope of reigniting her career with Lou Reed. The plan falls through.

Bukowski dies.

Kurt Cobain shoots himself.

Gregory Corso dies

Ken Kesey dies