August 8, 2009
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Profile America — Saturday, August 8th. Forty years ago this evening, one of the nation’s most notorious crimes began to unfold in Hollywood — the murders of actress Sharon Tate and some of her friends. The killings badly shook the movie community until the killers were arrested — Charles Manson and members of his so-called “family.” Manson, a drifter and petty criminal, was obsessed with songs of the Beatles, which he felt contained coded references to a forthcoming racial war in the U.S. He intended the murders of Sharon Tate and the others to start that war, believing he would become the nation’s leader in the war’s aftermath. In 1969, there were nearly 15,500 homicides in the U.S. Recently, there have been just under 15,000 murders annually. Profile America is in its 13th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sources: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, p. 414
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2009, t. 299
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2009edition.html
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