In the early 1960s, Jones visited Guyana – then a British colony – while on his way to establishing a short-lived Temple mission in Brazil. He was also upset with persecution against the Communist Party USA and was fascinated with the influence of religion. In doing so, the Temple preached that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment – socialism." Jones had an interest in Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Adolf Hitler from a young age, and would later frequently praise Stalin and Vladimir Lenin as heroes. Although its roots and teachings shared more with Christian revival movements than with Marxism, it purported to practice what it called " apostolic socialism". The Peoples Temple was formed by Jim Jones in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1955. Origins Ĭlass=notpageimage| Some of the Peoples Temple California locations Guards armed with firearms and crossbows had been ordered to shoot anyone who attempted to flee the settlement as Jones lobbied for suicide. Seventy or more individuals at Jonestown were injected with poison, and a third of the victims were minors. In contrast, later sources refer to the deaths with terms such as mass murder-suicide, a massacre, or simply mass murder. Many contemporary media accounts after the events called the deaths a mass suicide. Terms used to describe the deaths in Jonestown and Georgetown have evolved over time. Four other Temple members committed murder-suicide in Georgetown at Jones' command. Congressman Leo Ryan, an act that Jones ordered. The poisonings in Jonestown followed the murder of five others by Temple members at Port Kaituma, including U.S. In total 909 individuals died in Jonestown itself, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, a significant number of whom were injected against their will, in an event termed "revolutionary suicide" by Jones and some Peoples Temple members on an audio tape of the event, and in prior recorded discussions. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations. Jonestown became internationally infamous when, on November 18, 1978, a total of 918 people died at the settlement, at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma, and at a Temple-run building in Georgetown, Guyana's capital city. The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name " Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, an American cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. Class=notpageimage| The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project's places of interest in Guyana
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