The killing fields all started on April 17th, 1975 when Phnom Penh fell to Khmer Rouge (KR). The leader’s name was Saloth Sar, but went by Pol Pot. People say that he was trying to bring the country to “Purity.” The KR tried to completely get Cambodia to change overnight, making the country go to farming and giving total devotion to the state. If you did one thing against the rules, you could almost consider yourself dead. Estimates are that 1.7 million died. This genocide targeted the Vietnamese, Chinese, Chams, the Muslim people, but also was one where even Cambodians were killed too.