Jonestown Massacre

The Jonestown Massacre was the 1978 mass death of more than 900 members of Jim Jones's Peoples Temple in Guyana, following years of authoritarian control, isolation, apocalyptic fear, political-religious manipulation, and escalating abuse within a movement that had begun with promises of racial equality and social justice but collapsed into paranoia, coercion, murder, and forced mass suicide after Congressman Leo Ryan's investigative visit triggered Jones's final act of control over the community.