The most common cited event, that had the apparent consequence of precipitating the suicides was, as the above note testifies, the assassination of congressman Leo Ryan. Ryan was on a 'fact finding mission'. He had flown to Guyana to Jonestown accompanied and supported by 'Concerned Relatives', a group of parents and relatives seeking custody of a number of Peoples Temple members.
 
Whilst Ryan was not welcome at Jonestown, and had been asked not to go, the visit apparently went well at first. On the second day of the visit Ryan was attacked in the compound by Peoples Temple member Don Sly. He was not harmed but immediately terminated the visit and returned to the airstrip with his party including sixteen Temple members who had decided to leave. As he and the others were boarding the planes they were attacked and shot by Temple members, possibly the Temple guards who had followed the group back to the planes. Ryan and three members of the media were killed.
 
Jones claims not to have ordered or had any part of the murders, nevertheless he recognised that Jonestown would be overrun by security forces as a result, and at this point he informed Temple members that the end was near and that 'revolutionary suicide' was the only option left for the community.
 
Other commentators have noted that there was already an internal power struggle within the inner circle of Jonestown members that Jones was at risk of losing dominance. This was compounded by his increasing dependency on tranquillisers.
 
Jim Jones was born on 13 May 1931 in Indianapolis, Indiana to a poor family.
 
The Peoples Temple was originally founded as The Wings of Deliverance in 1955 by Jim Jones, and by 1960 the Temple was a affiliated to a liberal Protestant denomination in Indianapolis. Jones had been ordained as a minister and the Temple preached a doctrine of racial equality (which was unusual, if not radical at the time). Jones was also a committed communist and preached socialist - anti capitalist ideology. The congregation was racially mixed and many of its members originated from the poor and oppressed North American underclass.
 
In 1965 the Temple moved to California where it could pursue its theology of racial equality un hindered by a suspicious non liberal public. Then in 1972 it expanded with another congregation based in San Francisco, where entangled in local politics its public image was destroyed by the press. Many commentators have speculated that as a new religious movement with unorthodox and apparently radical beliefs it faced a hostile reaction typical of the fate of so many similar marginal belief groups.
 
By 1977 the Peoples Temple had purchased land in Guyana, a socialist country that enjoyed US support. The land was used as an Agricultural Mission, and occupied by approximately fifty Temple members. The same year the IRS (Inland Revenue Service) began to pursue the Temple for tax evasion. It was at this point that Jones decided to urge the whole community to move to Guyana.
 
Once in Guyana the pressure on the Temple increased through various channels:
 
The IRS continued to try and pursue the group (for instance by cutting social security benefits to those in Guyana)
 
The Concerned Relatives group lobbied congressman Ryan to put pressure on the Temple to release members.
 
Finally these (and other events, outside the scope of this brief background) factors contributed to the suicides on 18 November the following year. Jim Jones died that same day by shooting himself in the throat.