In 1978, 909 people lined up, drank poison, and died. More than 300 of them were children.
For decades, it was described as the largest mass suicide in modern history, and it remained the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until 9/11.
But was it really a mass suicide, or mass murder?
Jonestown was founded by Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple, a racially integrated American church that preached equality, socialism, and community care. By the time the world learned its name, 909 men, women, and children had consumed a cyanide-laced drink in a remote settlement in Guyana — while armed guards stood watch.
Some believed. Some resisted. Many were too young to choose. But all became part of what the world now shorthand calls “drinking the Kool-Aid.”
This is just the gist of The Jonestown Massacre.
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Doco: ‘Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown’ (2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYIUjavwqVo
Doco: ‘Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple’ (2006)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_d1eVv0E8
TV Movie: ‘Jonestown: Paradise Lost’ (2007)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLh7W5r4zS8
Book: ‘Salvation and Suicide: An Interpretation of Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown’ (1982) by David Chidester
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/835279.Salvation_and_Suicide
Book: ‘The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple’ (2018) by Jeff Guinn
https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/The-Road-to-Jonestown/Jeff-Guinn/9781476763835
Casefile Podcast: ‘Jonestown’ (Three-Part Series)
https://casefilepodcast.com/case-60-jonestown-part-1/
Wikipedia: Jim Jones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones