On November 18, 1978, Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones led
hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide at their
agricultural commune in a remote part of the South American
nation of Guyana.

Many of Jones’ followers willingly ingested a poison-laced punch
while others were forced to do so at gunpoint. The final death toll
at Jonestown that day was 909; a third of those who perished were children.

Jim Jones (below) was a charismatic churchman who established
the Peoples Temple, a Christian sect, in Indianapolis in the 1950s.         
        
        
        
        
        
        
       

Fitz Duke, who lives in nearby Port
Kaituma village, stands in front of
a nondescript memorial stone, the
only sign of the grisly Jonestown
massacre.

 
CAMILLE BOHANNON

At the end of a sensational trial, former football star O.J. Simpson 
was acquitted of the brutal 1994 double murder of his estranged
wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.

Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson (July 9, 1947 – April 10, 2024)

In May 2023, Simpson reported that he had been diagnosed with
prostate cancer and expressed confidence that he would beat it. 

He died of the disease at the age of 76.

ED DANAHUE

August 27 is known in some circles as Oil and Gas Industry
Appreciation Day. This date, in 1859, is also when Edwin
Drake drilled the first successful oil well in the world.

(Col) Edwin L. Drake (
March 29, 1819 – November 9, 1880)
Wikimedia Commons

Located at Mount Hotzvim in Jerusalem, a large quarry has been
under excavation, exposing more information on the Second
Temple time period when Jesus walked the Holy Land.

Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority excavated
the area that covers about 3,500 square meters, forming part
of a large field of quarries, according to a press release from
the Israel Antiquities Authority.

They have uncovered dozens of building stones of various
sizes, different paths and tools.

A stone tool identified with the Jewish population in the
Second Temple was discovered in the quarry located in Jerusalem.

(Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg)

Researchers in Germany have decoded what they say is the oldest-
ever manuscript detailing Jesus Christ’s life as a child.

The papyrus manuscript dates back more than 1,600 years old to
the 4th or 5th century. The document had been stored at a library
in Hamburg, Germany, as no one believed the document was of
any significance.

"The fragment is of extraordinary interest for research," Lajos
Berkes, a professor and one of the researchers who decoded the document said in a press release. "On the one hand, because we
were able to date it to the 4th to 5th century, making it the earliest
known copy.

Lajos Berkes