(CNN) -- What is it about Woodstock?



Jimi Hendrix closed the Woodstock festival on Monday morning, August 18, 1969.



The 1967 Monterey Pop Festival was arguably more influential and, like Woodstock, spawned a terrific film, D.A. Pennebaker's "Monterey Pop." The 1969 Isle of Wight Festival in England, two weeks after Woodstock, included the elusive Bob Dylan.



And there were several other gatherings during the late-'60s and early-'70s festival frenzy, including the ill-fated Altamont festival in 1969 and the record-setting Watkins Glen festival in 1973.



But nobody talked about a "Monterey Nation" or a "Wight Nation" or, God forbid, an "Altamont Nation." No other festival prompted Charles M. Schulz to name a "Peanuts" character after it. No other festival has maintained a viable name for four decades.



And no other festival is still so present in the public and media consciousness. With Woodstock's 40th anniversary Saturday comes a plethora of releases, including CDs, DVDs, a VH1 documentary airing Friday, the new movie "Taking Woodstock" and several books.  Watch Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang talk about the festival »



"There's a quality to Woodstock that has to do with the ... hugeness of it," said festival co-founder Joel Rosenman. "We seem to remember that it involved the whole generation." LIFE.com gallery: Chaos, nudity, spirit



Many members of that generation, he added, weren't aware there were so many others like themselves. "They had ... been reading in the establishment media they were a splinter here and a fragment there," he said. "And all of a sudden, they get to Woodstock ... and saw the entire world as [they] knew it was on [their] side instead of the side you thought it was on. ... It was pretty heady stuff." iReport: Memories of Woodstock



By now, the basics of Woodstock have passed into legend. How four men -- Rosenman, his business partner John Roberts, entrepreneur Michael Lang and record executive Artie Kornfeld -- wanted to put on a concert for the counterculture. How their site choices fell through. How Max Yasgur rented his dairy farm with a month to go. How the event drew half a million people, more than twice what had been expected. How it caused a huge traffic jam. How it became a free concert. How it rained.



And how everyone -- concertgoers and security, musicians and authorities, visitors and residents -- got along and made the most of the three days with minimal violence and lots of joy.  Watch why Woodstock made a difference »



As a resident of the Woodstock Nation might say, the vibes were good.



But that doesn't explain how the event gave way to the myth.



Elliott Landy, a photographer best known for his "Music from Big Pink" and "Nashville Skyline" portraits of The Band and Bob Dylan, respectively, believes part of Woodstock's aura came from its isolation.



"In the full Woodstock experience, you were cut off from the rest of ... everyday life," he said. "It was kind of a magic land."



Rock critic Dave Marsh, who said he was offered a ticket but didn't go, puts it succinctly: "Woodstock was an accident. God liked that one."



But Woodstock was also at the nexus of so many swirling currents of the '60s: the generation gap, the antiwar movement, the evolution of rock music, the growth of the youth culture. One person in Barbara Kopple's VH1 documentary said, with still-discernable anger, "They [the establishment] were trying to kill us," and he wasn't kidding; the draft was ever-present, with the threat of Vietnam hanging over many heads.



Music was just as divisive. Unlike today, when underground acts quickly become mainstream through word-of-Internet, the underground in 1969 was truly underground. Only the most popular rock acts appeared on prime time television, and a 1966 Harris poll reported a plurality
How many years ago was the Woodstock festival?
four decades.
question: How many years ago was the Woodstock festival?, answer: four decades.