Timeline of Rolling Stones

To get the magazine off the ground, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from his family members and from the family of his soon-to-be wife, Michell Palmer. The first issue carried a cover date of November 9, 1967 and was in newspaper format with a lead article on the Monterey Pop Festival.

Wenner stated in the first issue that the title of the magazine referred to the 1950 blues song, "Rollin' Stone", recorded by Muddy Waters, the rock group The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan's hit single "Like a Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone initially identified with and reported the hippie counterculture of the era. However, the magazine distanced itself from the underground newspapers of the time, such as Berkeley Barb, embracing more traditional journalistic standards and avoiding the radical politics of the underground press. In the very first edition of the magazine, Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone "is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces."

In 1977, the magazine moved its headquarters from San Francisco to New York City. Editor Jann Wenner said San Francisco had become "a cultural backwater”.

During the 1980s, the magazine began to shift focus towards being a general "entertainment" magazine. Music was still a dominant topic but there was increasing coverage of celebrities in television, films and the pop culture of the day. The magazine also initiated its annual "Hot Issue" during this time.

In January 2012, the magazine ran exclusive excerpts from Hastings' book just prior to publication. The book, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan, provided a much more expansive look at McChrystal and the culture of senior American military and how they get embroiled in these wars. It has been described as a boozy, sexy account of the misadventures of America's most notorious killers. The book reached Amazon's bestseller list in the first 48 hours of release, and it received generally favorable reviews. Salon's Glenn Greenwald described it as "superb," "brave" and "eye-opening."