Countdown: 3

I'm leaving for Guyana August 8th.  Each weekday, I'll post some information about the country.

Jonestown

Clearly not a period photograph (source).

 So Jonestown.  It's probably the best-known thing related to Guyana, even if most people have forgotten that Jim Jones decided to park his flock there.  

4 Sentence Recap:  Under a growing national spotlight of negative attention in the US, Jim Jones, leader of the People's Temple cult decided to move his band of followers to Guyana, where the socialist-leaning government was agreeable to the cults various conspiracy (growing US fascism, multinational corporate influence on the US government, US government racism, etc.).   The People's Temple Agricultural Project (nicknamed Jonestown, naturally) was established on 3,800 acres of land in the Northwest Guyana and inhabited by nearly 1000 cultists at its peak in 1978.  Responding to concerns of defected cult members, US congressman Leo Ryan to visit the Jonestown compound with a media entourage, collected many more defectors, and was sent off in a hail of bullets that ended his life.  With Ryan's death ensuring a US crackdown on the People's Temple, an already unhinged Jones enacted a well-rehearsed plan for mass suicide where cult members drank cyanide laced Kool-Aid, those unwilling to participate were murdered and Jones himself died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Other Fun Facts

Excluding natural distasters, the Jonestown massacre constituted the greatest single losses of American civilian life until the incidents of September 11, 2001.

Congressman Ryan was the first and only congressman murdered in the line of duty.

Before leaving Jonestown for the airstrip, Congressman Ryan had told a Temple attorney that he would issue a report that would describe Jonestown "in basically good terms."  So there was essentially no reason for him to be murdered.

Surprisingly, Jones was said to be abusing injectable Valium, Quaaludes, stimulants, and barbiturates.

source