Video: 'Seconds from Disaster Jonestown Cult Suicide (Full Documentary)' (Nov. 18, 1978, at 49:12)

(Saturday, November 18, 1978, approximately 5:00 p.m. Atlantic Daylight Time) — American religious cult leader Jim Jones, along with his inner circle, carried out a mass murder-suicide today at his Peoples Temple settlement at Jonestown, Guyana, claiming 918 lives, including over 270 children.

909 individuals died in Jonestown itself, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, in an event termed “revolutionary suicide” by Jones and some members on an audio tape of the event and in prior discussions.

The mass murder-suicide at Jonestown coincided with the murders U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of California and four others at the nearby Port Kaituma airstrip. Ryan had traveled to Guyana to determine “whether or not Jonestown is a jail,” a charge made by parents who say their offspring are not allowed to come and go as they please after they join the sect.

Ryan was the first sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives to have been assassinated in office since 1868.

Video: 'Jonestown - PBS documentary' (Nov. 18, 1978, at 1:03:33)