18. Mass Suicide of People’s Temple, 1978: 913 Casualties
Jim Jones was the quintessential cult leader; many people think of him when they hear about cults. He was the leader of a group known as the People’s Temple, which, in the 1960s, was a religious group committed to mutual sharing and promoting common welfare.
In the 1970s, the increasingly paranoid and delusional Jones moved the group to Guyana, away from the prying eyes of the US government. In 1978, he and the leaders of the group forced everyone, including children, to drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide, sometimes at gunpoint. Only a handful of people survived.
