Jonestown

[johnz-toun]

noun

1. a former settlement in northern Guyana, northwest of Georgetown: an agricultural commune of an American religious cult called the Peoples Temple, infamous as the site of a mass suicide and murder in 1978.

Example Sentences

On Nov. 27, 1978, with the city convulsed by the Jonestown cataclysm, Dan White, a former San Francisco supervisor, sneaked into City Hall and assassinated Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.

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San Francisco has always had this reputation, and in some ways justified, whether it’s the Preparedness Day bombings, the Dirty Harry films, the Zodiac killings, the Zebra killings, Jonestown.

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And so when we see something like Jonestown, where 900-plus people were murdered, that is power's ultimate path, because the ultimate exercise of power is control over life and death.

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Then, of course, came Jonestown.

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The images from Jonestown were horrifying: rows of bodies, cyanide-laced Flavor Aid, and chilling recordings of Jones commanding his followers to die for their cause.

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