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Yes,Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an international community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement, at a nearby airstrip, and in Georgetown (Guyana’s capital). The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations.
A total of 909 Temple members died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, in an event termed “revolutionary suicide” by Jones and some members on an audio tape of the event and in prior discussions. The poisonings in Jonestown followed the murder of five others by Temple members at a nearby Port Kaituma airstrip. The victims included United States Congressman Leo Ryan. Four other Temple members died in Georgetown at Jones’ command.
To an extent, the actions in Jonestown were viewed as a mass suicide; some sources, including Temple survivors, consider the event to be a mass murder. It was the largest such event in modern history and resulted in the largest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the events of September 11, 21.
The Jonestown cult (officially named the “People’s Temple”) was founded in 1955 by Indianapolis preacher James Warren Jones. Jones, who had no formal theological training, based his liberal ministry on a combination of religious and socialist philosophies.
A New, Isolated Community
After relocating to California in 1965, the church continued to grow in membership and began advocating their left-wing political ideals more actively. With an I.R.S. investigation and a great deal of negative press mounting against the radical church, Jones urged his congregation to join him in a new, isolated community where they could escape American capitalism—and criticism—and practice a more communal way of life.
In 1977, Jones and many of his followers relocated to Jonestown, located on a tract of land the People’s Temple had purchased and begun to develop in Guyana three years earlier.
Relatives of cult members soon grew concerned and requested that the U.S. government rescue what they believed to be brainwashed victims living in concentration camp-like conditions under Jones’s power.
The Visit of Congressman Ryan
In November 1978, California Congressman Leo Ryan arrived in Guyana to survey Jonestown and interview its inhabitants. After reportedly having his life threatened by a Temple member during the first day of his visit, Ryan decided to cut his trip short and return to the U.S. with some Jonestown residents who wished to leave. As they boarded their plane, a group of Jones’s guards opened fire on them, killing Ryan and four others.
Some members of Ryan’s party escaped, however. Upon learning this, Jones told his followers that Ryan’s murder would make it impossible for their commune to continue functioning. Rather than return to the United States, the People’s Temple would preserve their church by making the ultimate sacrifice: their own lives. Jones’s 912 followers were given a deadly concoction of purple Kool-Aid mixed with cyanide, sedatives, and tranquilizers. Jones apparently shot himself in the head.
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Its not mythology or folkore.It’s recent historical fact.