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[–] 10 points 7 months ago (5 children)

While use of the phrase dates back to 1968 with the nonfiction book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,[1] it is strongly associated with the events in Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978, in which over 900 members of the Peoples Temple movement died. The movement's leader, Jim Jones, called a mass meeting at the Jonestown pavilion after the murder of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and others in nearby Port Kaituma. Jones proposed "revolutionary suicide" by way of ingesting a powdered drink mix made from Flavor Aid, later misidentified as Kool-Aid, that was lethally laced with cyanide and other drugs.[2][3]

Via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

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  • [+] 1 point 7 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 22 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    With more than 900 people in it, the punch line must have been horrible.

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  • [+] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago*

    There were some survivors. Some died willingly knowing what they were doing, a lot of them wound up being forced at gunpoint. The entire compound was being guarded by men with rifles, since they were rightly afraid the US was just going to come down and kill them because the cult had legitimately just murdered a US congressman.

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