With gavel in hand, Nancy Pelosi gears up to seal a place in US history

Nancy Ms Pelosi knows that this speakership will be defined by how she handles President Trump

There was a brief moment in Nancy Pelosi’s life when she worried she had too much power. She had so many titles in the California Democratic Party, including chairwoman, that she told Lindy Boggs, a Louisiana congresswoman, that she was thinking of giving some up.

That was in 1984, and Ms Boggs “said, ‘Darlin’, no man would ever think that. Don’t you give anything up,’” Ms Pelosi said in a recent interview, leaning forward as she mimicked Ms Boggs’s Southern accent. “And then she said, ‘Know thy power.’”

More than three decades later, Ms Pelosi is all but assured on Thursday of reclaiming her former