Word: cult
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...little closer to that nightmare vision last week after more than 100 agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) assaulted his compound. When the firing finally stopped after an hour, four agents lay dead and 16 were wounded; inside the compound as many as 10 cult members were reported dead, including, Koresh said, a two-year-old girl, one of many children that Koresh has fathered by more than a dozen wives. The body of a man presumed to be a Koresh follower was found outside later, clutching...
...Waco cult is the product of an apocalyptic theology, refined over decades by a succession of zealous but nonviolent splinter groups, that was seized at last by a charismatic and combustible leader. The son of a single mother, Koresh was born Vernon Howell in Houston in 1959. Growing up in the Dallas area, he was an indifferent student but an avid reader of the Bible who prayed for hours and memorized long passages of Scripture. He also played guitar -- not badly by some reports -- using rock music as well as his magnetic preaching to recruit followers. Some of the spartan...
With Roden out of the way, Howell became undisputed leader of the Branch Davidians in Waco, completing their transition from congregation to cult. He and a few select followers began recruiting new members on trips around the U.S., Britain and Australia. In 1990 he changed his name legally to Koresh, Hebrew for Cyrus, the Persian king who allowed the Jews to return to Israel after their captivity in Babylon. His apocalyptic theology converged with secular survivalism, with its programs for hunkering down amid stockpiles of food and ammo to endure a nuclear holocaust or social collapse...
...final battle with unbelievers. The Waco settlement, once a collection of old cottages scattered around 78 acres of scrub pasture and woods, was consolidated into a compact fort the size of a city block. Having equipped it with an underground bunker and an armory -- adjacent to the chapel -- cult members discussed renaming the place Ranch Apocalypse. Federal agents began tracking frequent shipments of firepower that they say amounted to 8,000 lbs. of ammunition and enough parts to assemble hundreds of automatic and semiautomatic weapons. Some time ago a package addressed to the compound split open before it could...
...grandeza (Mixture is greatness). Lam's father was Chinese, his mother the daughter of a slave from the Congo. (Spain did not abandon slavery in its Caribbean colonies until 1886.) He grew up hearing African languages spoken all around him, and his godmother was a priestess of a Santeria cult, a hybrid form of Christianity and African worship...