cutter Escanaba saved the others. Died: Vernon Dahmer, 57, African-American civil rights leader, was murdered in his home near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the day after he had announced that he would begin a voter registration drive for black residents of Forrest County. White supremacists used gasoline bombs to burn his home; his wife and a 10-year-old daughter escaped, but Mr. Dahmer died of his injuries later in the day at the Hattiesburg Hospital. On August 21, 1998, after 32 years and four trials that ended in a mistrial, Samuel H. Bowers, who had been the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, would be convicted of ordering the murder and sentenced to life in prison. January 11, 1966 (Tuesday) India's Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was found dead in the dacha where he was staying in Tashkent, in the Soviet Union, the day after he had signed a peace agreement with the Prime Minister of Pakistan. His wife, Lalita, would claim that he had been poisoned, and the butler who had been attending him would be arrested, but later released. Other observers have concluded that Shastri, who had twice suffered heart attacks, had died from a cardiac arrest after calling for his personal physician, Dr. R. N. Chugh. George Rogers was replaced by John Silkin as a Lord of the Treasury in Harold Wilson's first UK government. Died: Alberto Giacometti, 64, Swiss sculptor (heart disease and chronic bronchitis); January 12, 1966 (Wednesday) The television series, Batman, produced by William Dozier and starring Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin, debuted as a mid-season replacement on the ABC network in the United States. Each weekly episode was a two-part cliffhanger, following a formula of the heroes facing their demise from the villain on Wednesday evening, and the duo's escape and triumph on the Thursday installment. Written primarily by Lorenzo Semple, the show combined camp humor with the action film genre, and appealed to both adults and children. In his first State of the Union Address as President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson told Congress and television viewers that the nation could afford both the funding of the cost of social programs and an ongoing war, saying "I believe that we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam." Johnson also proposed the creation of a new cabinet level department, the United States Department