James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader and mass murderer who led the Peoples Temple between 1955 and 1978. In what he termed "revolutionary suicide", a term he took from the novel by the same name by Huey Newton, Jones and the members of his inner circle planned and orchestrated a mass murder-suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978. Jones and the events that occurred at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. Wikipedia