CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/16/2019

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the largest peaceful gathering in the history of the world

"On the weekend of August 15–17, 1969, our Woodstock festival became the second largest city in New York State," Michael Lang writes in Reel Art Press's remarkable new fiftieth-anniversary publication, Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music. "I later heard that some Hare Krishnas who were there compared the crowd to the multitudes in India who flock to the banks of the Ganges to ritualistically bathe in sacred waters. Stephen Stills quipped that the size of the crowd was like a combination of the Macedonian Army and the 12 Tribes of Israel. When musicians flew over the gathering in a helicopter, they were gobsmacked to see the massive audience below… It was the crowd that became the most important element for everyone. No one could have imagined what it would be like to be among 500 thousand people. It was the largest peaceful gathering in the history of the world at that point." Featured photograph, of John Sebastian on stage before the crowd, is by Henry Diltz.