Founded by Jim Jones in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Peoples Temple spread a message that combined elements of Christianity with communist and socialist ideology, with an emphasis on racial equality.

After Jones moved the group to California in the 1960s and established several locations throughout the state, including its headquarters in San Francisco, the Temple forged ties with many left-wing political figures and claimed to have 20,000 members (though 3,000–5,000 is more likely).

The incident at Jonestown resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

[6] Jones began closely associating with the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG), an international group of churches who embraced the Latter Rain movement.

[10] Many attendees in the campaign believed Jones's performance indicated that he possessed a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of Peoples Temple.

[14] Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham and Mattsson-Boze in the second half of the 1950s, making multiple joint appearances with them.

[23] Jones carefully wove in that the Temple's home for senior citizens was established on the basis "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", quoting Karl Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program.

[52] He believed that if the true nature of his views became widely known, he would quickly lose the support of political leaders and even face the possibility of Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ.

Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects to earn income for the People Temple and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food.

[60] The first known cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules.

[63] Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence.

[65] From the start, the Los Angeles facility's primary purposes were to recruit members and to serve as a waystation for the Temple's weekly bus trips across California.

[65] Its central location at the corner of Alvarado and Hoover Streets permitted easy geographic access for a large black membership from Watts and Compton.

Within that structure, Temple members were unwittingly and gradually subjected to sophisticated mind control and behavior modification techniques borrowed from post-revolutionary China and North Korea.

[70] Jones also surrounded himself with several dozen mostly white, privileged members in their twenties and thirties who had skills in law, accounting, nursing, teaching, music, and administration.

[70] This latter group carried out public relations, financial duties, and more mundane chores while bringing in good salaries from well-paying outside jobs.

[76] Beginning in the 1970s, the bus caravan also traveled across the U.S. quarterly, including to Washington, D.C.[76] In June 1973, Representative George Brown, Jr. entered a lengthy and laudatory description of the Temple into the Congressional Record.

[76] The Washington Post ran an August 18, 1973, editorial-page item stating that the 660 Temple visitors were the "hands down winners of anybody's tourists of the year award" after spending an hour cleaning up the Capitol grounds.

[33] By the mid-1970s, in addition to its locations in Redwood Valley, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Temple had established satellite congregations in almost a dozen other California cities.

In 1972, the San Francisco Examiner and the Indianapolis Star ran the first four parts of a seven-part story on the Temple by Lester Kinsolving, its first public exposé.

[97] Despite the Temple's fear that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was investigating its religious tax exemption, Marceline admitted to The New York Times in 1977 that her husband, taking inspiration from Mao Zedong, was trying to achieve social change by mobilizing people through religion.

[106] Willie Brown visited the Temple numerous times and spoke publicly in support of Jones, even after investigations and suspicions of cult activity.

[111] The Temple further forged an alliance with San Francisco's Black community newspaper, the Sun Reporter publisher Dr. Carlton Goodlett and it received frequent favorable mentions in that paper.

[116] Gradually, Jones worked to improve relations with the Nation of Islam, culminating a joint "Spiritual Jubilee" rally held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in May 1976.

"[126] Increasing media scrutiny based on allegations by former members placed further pressure on Jones, especially after a 1977 article by Marshall Kilduff in New West magazine.

[135] Though she was shot five times, including suffering a massive leg wound, Speier survived and won a seat in Congress in 2008, serving until she declined to run for reelection in 2022.

[143] The mass killing became one of the best-known events in U.S. history as measured by the Gallup poll and appeared on the cover of several newspapers and magazines, including Time, for months afterward.

Similarly, in 1979, the Associated Press reported a U.S. Congressional aide's claim that there were "120 white, brainwashed assassins out from Jonestown awaiting the trigger word to pick up their hit.

[150] Before the tragedy, Temple member Paula Adams engaged in a romantic relationship with Guyana's Ambassador to the United States, Laurence "Bonny" Mann.

[158] The Temple's former San Francisco headquarters, located at 1859 Geary Boulevard, was destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake; the site is now occupied by a Post Office branch.