Did you ever wonder where the phrase 'drink the Kool-Aid' came from? In this second episode about the Peoples Temple, we rejoin them in Jonestown, Guyana.How planned was the final 'white night'? Did anyone survive? And what happened to the notorious Jim Jones?Don is joined once again by author and scholar Annie Dawid, who has spent over two decades researching Peoples Temple.Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Tim Arstall. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast.
Chapter 1: Who are the main speakers in this episode of Jonestown?
Chapter 2: What happened when the Guyanese army arrived at Jonestown?
Hi everyone, it's Don here. Jumping in to warn you that this episode contains details of mass murder and suicide that may be distressing to some listeners. Please proceed at your own discretion. The Guyanese jungle is dense and tangled. The morning sun cuts through the trees, catching the rising steam from last night's rainfall. It is humid and sweltering hot.
Soldiers from the Guyanese army move carefully through the vegetation, hacking at the undergrowth. They've journeyed here from the nearest town, Port Kaituma, over 10 kilometers away. Now they are on edge, tense, as they approach the site of the Jonestown encampment.
After the shootings at the Kaituma airfield on the 18th, these troops have every reason to expect hostile resistance from the settlers. But the further in they go, treading ever so quietly, the more aware they become of the absence of noise. But for the dew drips from the trees, the squelch and crack of their boots on the forest floor, there is only a strange silence.
They've been told nearly a thousand people live here, and yet, nothing, no sound. Not even from the 300 children, who should be shouting, playing, crying for food. There is only an eerie quiet. and then the smell. As the soldiers emerge into the open, they cover their noses as a sickly stench of human rot overtakes them. There is retching, groans. One soldier makes the sign of the cross.
This is more than they are prepared for. This is more than any human being should bear. Hello there. Greetings. Welcome to American History Hit. I'm Don Wildman. Today we are heading back into the story of the People's Temple and Jonestown. Last week, Annie Dowd introduced us to the notorious religious leader, Jim Jones.
We explored how Jones created his church, why so many followed him, and what led these people from Indiana to California to Guyana, South America. If you haven't listened to this episode, I would recommend heading over to it now and then rejoin us later. We'll be right here.
For those of you ready to go on, you'll remember we left off on the airstrip in Guyana, where members of the People's Temple have shot California Congressman Leo Ryan dead. alongside four others. Confirming that the congressman is dead, the gunman returned to Jonestown. Annie Dowd joins me again to take us through the next 24 hours and the impact of Jonestown to this day.
Annie, we left off with five dead on the tarmac and Jim Jones proclaiming that it is now time to commit revolutionary suicide. This was not an unprecedented event for them. I mean, obviously the suicide was, but they'd gone through this act several times, right?
Yes. They had done these drills before, suicide drills. Back in the States, they did at least one, and there was at least one in the jungle itself. So back in the States already, Jones had instituted these mock mass suicides, which he called White Nights. And people would drink a liquid, and he'd tell them it was poisoned. And then guess what? It wasn't poisoned. It was just a loyalty test.
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