section_path: Social and culture/Notable cases
section_name: Notable cases
paragraph_text: Notable cases
  
  An example of mass suicide is the 1978 Jonestown mass murder/suicide in which 909 members of the Peoples Temple, an American new religious movement led by Jim Jones, ended their lives by drinking grape Flavor Aid laced with cyanide and various prescription drugs.
  
  Thousands of Japanese civilians took their own lives in the last days of the Battle of Saipan in 1944, some jumping from " Suicide Cliff " and " Banzai Cliff ". The 1981 Irish hunger strikes, led by Bobby Sands, resulted in 10 deaths. The cause of death was recorded by the coroner as "starvation, self-imposed" rather than suicide; this was modified to simply "starvation" on the death certificates after protest from the dead strikers' families. During World War II, Erwin Rommel was found to have foreknowledge of the 20 July plot on Hitler's life; he was threatened with public trial, execution, and reprisals on his family unless he killed himself.