With support from the University of Richmond

New perspectives on how history is made

10 Days that Shook San Francisco

Thirty years ago, two unimaginable tragedies jolted San Francisco in less than a fortnight.

On Nov. 18, 1978, more than 900 men, women and children - many of them poor African Americans from San Francisco - died after drinking a cyanide-laced potion in Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones' compound in the jungles of Guyana.

Then, while San Francisco struggled to grasp the enormity of that tragedy, on Nov. 27 a fiercely conservative ex-supervisor named Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the nation's few openly gay politicians.
Read entire article at S.F. Chronicle