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 filibuster was initially conceived of as a way to ensure that minority opinions were heard and understood before the Senate voted on an issue. Senate rules first allowed for filibusters in 1806, though the first filibuster actually occurred more than 30 years later, in 1837. They continued to be rare for more than another century. The idea behind the filibuster was simple: As long as a senator kept talking on the floor, a bill could not move forward.