Albert Hofmann's 1943 LSD Discovery and Bicycle Day Celebrations

On April 19, 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann intentionally ingested 0.25 milligrams of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and bicycled home from his lab in Basel, Switzerland, marking the first recorded LSD trip. Hofmann had initially synthesized LSD-25 in 1943 while researching lysergic acid derived from the ergot fungus for Sandoz Laboratories, aiming to develop treatments for respiratory and circulatory conditions. After inadvertently absorbing trace amounts earlier that April, he experienced dizziness, anxiety, visual distortions, and a desire to laugh, leading to a six-hour trip with intense visuals. Hofmann, who died in 2008 at age 102, later reflected that LSD provided access to an 'unfathomable reality' similar to a childhood nature walk in Baden, Switzerland. By 1950, Sandoz Laboratories marketed LSD under the brand name Delysid to psychiatric hospitals for research. The 1960s saw psychedelics become central to countercultural movements, with over a million Americans trying LSD recreationally by 1970, prompting Switzerland to limit its use in 1968 and the United States to criminalize it by 1970. Today, Bicycle Day is celebrated annually on April 19 with bike rides in Basel and globally, while recent clinical research, including a study in Nature Medicine, explores psychedelics for mental health treatments. In a 2004 interview at Art Basel, Hofmann emphasized LSD's role in revealing the natural world amidst mechanization.