Several significant family events took place during Lincoln's youth in Indiana. On October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln died of milk sickness, leaving eleven-year-old Sarah in charge of a household that included her father, nine-year-old Abraham, and Dennis Hanks, Nancy's nineteen-year-old orphaned cousin.
In 1977, Meier set the world record for longest filibuster. From the floor of the Texas Senate, Meier spoke mostly uninterrupted for 43 hours to fight a bill he viewed as an attack on the state's open records laws. The achievement was recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records for well over a decade.
The most the Democrats have ever use the filibuster was 58 times in the 106th Congress of 1999-2000. During most of Obama's first year in office and for a few weeks this year, 58 Democratic senators and two Independents who normally vote with them held a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate.