1. Jonestown (Peoples Temple)
The cruelest of the 11 Most Infamous Cults and Cult Leaders in American History is Peoples Temple, founded in 1955 by Reverend Jim Jones. In 1978, they moved from California to Guyana, where they began building a planned utopian community. After many complaints of abuse in this commune, Congressman Leo Ryan and three journalists traveled to Guyana. Peoples Temple members threatened them almost immediately and Ryan decided to end the trip early and return home with any followers who wished to leave.
But Jones sent armed guards who shot and killed Ryan and four others before they could leave. Jones told his followers that this crime made it impossible for any of them to ever return to the United States and prompted them to complete mass suicide as an act of protest. Over 900 members of Peoples Temple drank cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, eventually spawning the figure of speech “drank the Kool-Aid” to refer to brainwashed followers. Jones shot himself in the head.
