WASHINGTON, D.C. (GlossyNews) — West Virginia Sen. Robert Carlyle Byrd, the longest-serving member of Congress and the self-educated son of a coal miner, died Monday at age 92.

Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. on November 20, 1917, in North Carolina. His mother died when he was a year old. His aunt and uncle, Titus and Vlurma Byrd, legally adopted him. A nine-term Democrat, Byrd was known as a master of the chamber’s often-arcane rules and as the self-proclaimed “champion of the Constitution,” a jealous guardian of congressional power. Read the full story