Democrats just used a famous tactic to get the Senate to vote on guns - and it has a fascinating history

Huey Long, the famous populist from Louisiana, filibustered to keep a bill that required senior employees in the National Recovery Administration to be confirmed.

The filibuster was an effort to stop Long's political enemies in Louisiana from getting lucrative jobs.

Long's filibuster failed and the provision in the bill was removed — but not before he spoke for 15 hours and 30 minutes. He began by reading and analyzing each section of the Constitution, then veered into Shakespeare plays and his own family recipes, including fried oysters and "potlikker," a soup made from collard greens.

Strom Thurmond, a senator from South Carolina, takes the cake for longest filibuster in recorded history, at 24 hours and 18 minutes. He was trying to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957 from passing.

Thurmond was prepared: he took a steam bath beforehand to rid his body of excess liquid, brought throat lozenges to the Senate floor, and dashed into a coatroom at one point to scarf down a sandwich while another senator asked a question. A staffer was even on hand with a bucket in case he had a bathroom emergency. He read from historical documents to pass the time.

Thurmond wasn't able to persuade any senators to change their vote, and the act eventually passed. California Sen. William Knowland later deemed Thurmond's speech "cruel and unusual punishment."

New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato is famous for pulling off two of the longest filibusters in US history.

In 1986, he spoke for 23 hours and 20 minutes, attempting to block a defense bill that would have defunded a jet trainer program in upstate New York. After he had explained his opposition, he turned to reading the Washington, D.C. phonebook out loud. D'Amato was successful and the bill was blocked.

Six years later, he spent 15 hours and 14 minutes protesting another bill that would have outsourced over 900 typewriter manufacturing jobs in an upstate New York community to Mexico, a speech that included a performance of "South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)." This time, the filibuster failed.

Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders launched a filibuster in 2010 against a tax-cut deal negotiated by Obama and Republican leaders.

He spoke for 8 hours and 37 minutes, but his filibuster wasn't a true filibuster because a vote was scheduled for a few days later, regardless. The deal was eventually passed.

His speech included letters from constituents who had been hit hard by the Great Recession. His remarks were later turned into a book: "The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class."

In March 2013, Kentucky senator and former Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul launched a filibuster to delay voting on the nomination of John Brennan as Director of the CIA.

Paul, who has protested the Obama administration's use of drones to target suspected terrorists overseas, spoke for 12 hours and 52 minutes. Brennan was eventually confirmed.

A little over two years later, Paul gave another speech that lasted nearly 11 hours to protest the Patriot Act and the government's surveillance of American phone records.

In a September 2013 Senate speech that lasted 21 hours and 18 minutes, Texas senator and former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz defended a federal budget bill that included a provision to defund the Affordable Care Act.

The Senate ultimately blocked the bill, which had already been approved by the House of Representatives, resulting in a 16-day government shutdown.

Cruz' filibuster wasn't truly a filibuster, since a vote had already been scheduled. But he spent his speech outlining his issues with Obamacare and sharing stories from people who had been negatively impacted by the legislation. He even read bedtime stories to his two daughters, who were at home watching him on C-SPAN.