Jonestown Mass Murder/Suicide

Date: November 18, 1978 • Location: Mabaruma, Guyana

Jim Jones led more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple to mass murder/suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, hours after some of its members assassinated U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan.

James Warren Jones was an American cult leader, preacher, and mass murderer who founded and led the Peoples Temple between 1955 and 1978. Jones and the members of his inner circle planned and orchestrated a mass murder–suicide that resulted in the deaths of over 900 people. He described the action as "revolutionary suicide", a term coined by Huey P. Newton. The people went to their deaths at the remote jungle commune which they had developed at Jonestown, Guyana, which was operated like a mini-totalitarian police state under official permission and a formal land lease from the Government of Guyana. U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan, who had been visiting to investigate reports of human rights abuses and people wanting to leave, was also assassinated before his plane departed. Jones blended Pentecostal religious authority with Marxist–Leninist rhetoric, with an emphasis on racial equality during the civil rights movement, which resulted in most of his followers being African American.