Jonestown Massacre

James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder of the Peoples Temple which became synonymous with cultic group suicide after the November 18, 1978 mass murder-suicide poisoning of over 900 members of the group in their remote commune named Jonestown. The commune, located in Guyana, South America, was founded in the mid-1970s as an agrarian community and escape from society for the cult's followers. The majority of the cult members at the community died from cyanide poisoning and a few from gunshot wounds. The cyanide poison was distributed via vats of fruit drink commonly called "kool aid" but the actual drink mix used was actually another brand. References to "drinking the kool aid" has became a common deragatory remark used to describe anyone who mindlessly follows a leader or movement to the point of fanatical devotion.

Jones was originally ordained as a "local" minister in the "Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)" denomination which at the time allowed for local congregations to ordain their own local pastor. However, ordinations conducted locally without overall denominational endoresement were not considered valid throughout the entire denonmination. So Jones was basically a lone pastor with a warped sense of theology who eventually blended many supposedly Christian ideas with his own version of liberation theology. The result was one of the most infamous cults in modern history.