A Cult Gone Wrong Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jim Jones

Jim Jones was born in 1931 and became a preacher in the 1950's, when he founded his cult, originally called the Wings of Deliverance. He was known for his fair treatment of blacks and gained a reputation for this. In 1965, he moved his cult from Indianapolis, Indiana to Mendocino County, California because he believed this was one of the world's few places that would survive nuclear holocaust.

Answer: 1974

In 1974, amid scandals of tax evasion, Jones began moving his cult from California to Guyana, where he had his followers build the settlement of Jonestown. He had considered moving to other locations in California or Brazil but settled on Guyana instead.
(most members of the cult moved there in 1977)

Answer: False

In 100 degrees Fahrenheit, 6 days a week, his followers built Jonestown. His adherents only got to eat rice and beans while he got to eat eggs, meat, salads, and soft drinks from a private fridge. Misbehaving children were sometimes put into a well, often upside down, overnight or put in a 6x4x3 foot wooden box.

Answer: Leo Ryan

On November 14, 1978, Leo Ryan went there with government officials and the news media. After a few days, several members of the cult defected with Ryan's crew, and the plane that Ryan had brought was not big enough for everyone. He let the defectors get on the first plane and he and the rest waited for the next plane. During this time, Ryan was attacked by a Temple member with a knife.

When the next plane arrived, a defector who was secretly a loyalist shot at the group, killing Congressman Ryan, an NBC cameraman, and several other people.

Answer: Port Kaituma

Port Kaituma was a small town about 10 kilometers from Jonestown. All but 4 of Ryan's delegation were forced to stay in a cafe in Port Kaituma because Jones would not allow them to come to his town.

Answer: Flavor Aid laced with cyanide

Later on during the day of the Kaituma Airport shootings, Jones and his assistants mixed Valium and cyanide into a vat of purple Flavor Aid. Children were given the drinks first. It was believed this would make the parents less resistant to their own deaths, having seen their children die.

Answer: False

On the night of the murders, four residents survived. 76-year-old Hyacinth Thrash hid under her bed when nurses came in with the poisoned Kool aid, 36-year-old Odell Rhodes who was a teacher, pretended to get a stethoscope from a building and then hid under it, 25-year-old Stanley Clayton tricked security guards and ran into the jungle, and 79-year-old Grover Davis lay down in a ditch and pretended to be dead.

Answer: Gunshot

Jim Jones and Annie Moore were the only two people to die at Jonestown of gunshot wounds. Annie Moore left a suicide note, but it was later proven to be false and that Jones probably shot her and then shot himself.

Answer: Abandoned

The town was abandoned and was largely destroyed by a fire in the mid 1980's. The Guyanese people did not take back the land because of the infamous murders associated with it.

Answer: Marceline

Jim Jones and Marceline Jones had two sons, one who was their own and one adopted. Their real son, Stephan Jones, was not in Jonestown at the time of the murder/suicides because he was playing with the People's Temple Basketball team against the Guyanese National Basketball team.

Their other, adopted son, Jim Jones Jr. was an African-American and Jim Jones was the first white man to adopt an African-American in the state of Indiana.