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1978 - Jonestown Massacre

By Jennifer Rosenberg, About.com

Jonestown Massacre (1978): On November 18, 1978, Peoples Temple cult leader Jim Jones instructed his followers to commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced fruit punch. At the Jonestown compound in Guyana, 912 Peoples Temple members (276 of whom were children) drank the punch and died. Jim Jones died the same day from a gunshot wound to the head.

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