5 Famous Food Poisonings
By: Anthony Adragna
Published: April 25, 2011

Throughout history, a number of methods have been employed to end a life or make political statements. More often than not, these incidents take place far away from the dinner table. Sometimes, though, the mode of assassination (or attempted assassination) involves food. Here are five examples of food being used as a way to poison people. Some proved fatal; others were not.
1. Jonestown: Before 9/11, the mass suicide of members of the People's Temple in Jonestown was the single largest loss of human life during a non-natural disaster. Founded in the mid-1960s by Reverend Jim Jones, more than 900 people moved with him to the group's new home in Guyana in 1974. Embracing their "socialist republic," Jones' followers thought they had found a utopia free from the evil of the outside world. Then, in 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan visited Jonestown to investigate claims of abuse there. Several members of the group expressed desire to leave, and did so. Jones ordered them followed and a group of armed men shot the group at a Guyana airstrip (5 people died, including Congressman Ryan). Jones ordered his followers to drink cyanide-laced grape Kool-Aid. 918 people died.
2. Fidel Castro: The desire of the United States to get rid of Cuban leader Fidel Castro is hardly a secret. CIA members employed a number of creative ways to try and assassinate Castro. None of them were effective. On no less than 6 occasions, they tried to introduce food into the communist leader's food and drink. Members of the CIA made contact with Juan Orta, a man who had contact with Castro often. They wanted him to slip a poisoned pill into his food. Orta, however, couldn't get the job done and the plan was eventually scrapped.

3. Rasputin: The beloved mystic to the czar's wife in pre-communist Russia, Rasputin gradually became a more and more important adviser to the country's leader. In 1916, a group of nobles lured Rasputin to a gathering by promising that an influential woman would be there to receive him. Once he arrived, they led him down to the basement where he consumed cakes and red wine laced with an extraordinary amount of cyanide. When this did not kill him right away, the men shot him in the back and, after finding him very much still alive later that evening, beat him into submission. They later tossed his body into a river where he ultimately died of drowning.

4. Alan Turing: Often considered to be one of the world's first and most influential computer scientists, Turing lived a complex and twisted life. His Turing Machine became an important step on the development of the modern computer. In 1952, he was prosecuted for being homosexual (back when being gay was still a crime in the United Kingdom). Though the events surrounding his death remain mysterious to this day, the consensus is that Turing injected an apple with cyanide and took a bite. He was found dead the following day.

5. Zachary Taylor (?): The death of the United States' 12th president remains up for debate. After watching the groundbreaking ceremony for the Washington Monument, Taylor opted for a bowl of cherries and a pitcher of milk. He died about a week later from symptoms thought to be generally consist with cholera.  Nevertheless, some people remain convinced that the man may have been poisoned.
Photo by "Carolonline" / paukrus/ Loz Flowers