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Everything You Should Know About the Jonestown Massacre

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The who died book
Everything You Should Know About the Jonestown Massacre

The infamous "Jonestown Massacre" happened on November 18, 1978, when around 900 followers, including more than 300 children, belong to Peoples Temple, a religious community supervised by Jim Jones, committed mass murder-suicide. This incident is still regarded as one of the most horrifying mass death-murder incidents in American history. Even after so many years, this shocking and tragic event continues to haunt us.

Here's everything you need to know about the Jonestown Massacre.

 

                    What was the Jonestown Massacre?

 

Jim Jones, a cult leader, founded the Peoples Temple in the 1950s and then relocated to California in the 1960s. When the media started paying close attention to Peoples Temple's activities due to reports of his unethical behavior with the followers, he flew to Guyana, a Latin American country with around 1,000 followers. They eventually moved into the Jonestown compound in the 1970s, a socialist utopia, which they had been building for three to four years.

 

Amid serious concern about the well-being of the followers living in Jonestown, U.S. Representative Leo Ryan and four members of the media visited Jonestown on November 18, 1978. Unfortunately, Ryan and his delegation were shot to death while rescuing a few of the members.

 

Following the murders, Jones ordered his followers to drink a cyanide-laced beverage as he was aware that the United States government would react firmly to the assassination of Ryan's delegation.

 

As a result, the mass suicide murder took the lives of over 900 people in Jonestown, including Jim Jones, who was found dead with a gunshot wound in the head. However, it is unclear whether or not he did this to himself.

 

                          Life after the Jonestown Massacre

Decades later, Jonestown survivors still fondly remember days they have spent in the services of church and organization. Most of them dedicated themselves to humanitarian causes. In 2008, authorities even built a stone memorial in the memory of unclaimed bodies buried at the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California. Life after the Jonestown massacre is undoubtedly not the same for the survivors. Many of them have penned down their experiences.

 

 However, they believed they were doing the right things, but they had picked the wrong place and wrong guidance. If you want to know more unknown facts and in-depth insights about one of the most disturbing tragedies in American history, you can find several good books on the Jonestown Massacre

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