Branch Davidians

a US religious group, based in Waco, Texas,which believed that Christ would soon return to earth. Their leader was David Koresh. In 1993 members of the group killed four US government officers who were trying to enter their building. The building was then surrounded for 51 days until the Branch Davidians began a fire in which 82 of them died (33 from Britain).

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Religious sect that believes in the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

It was founded in 1935 near Waco, Texas, by Victor Houteff as a breakaway group from the Seventh-Day Adventists. Under the leadership of Vernon Howell, a charismatic and apocalyptic preacher who would take the name David Koresh (1959–1993), it stockpiled weapons at its compound, where some 130 followers were living by 1993. That year, after a shoot-out in which four federal agents were killed, federal law-enforcement agencies besieged the compound for 51 days. The standoff ended, at the orders of Attorney General Janet Reno, in a conflagration in which some 80 members died, including several children and Koresh himself. Intense controversy about the precise circumstances and the necessity of the final assault led to a Congressional investigation, which in 2000 exonerated federal agents.

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