Episode 888: The First Shutdown

By
Sarah Gonzalez
and
Ailsa Chang
WNYC | Jan 16, 2019

The government is shut down again. Here at Planet Money, we wondered: just how long has this been going on? The answer is: It started a long time ago, but then it didn't happen again for nearly a hundred years.

Today on the show, we go back in time to 1879. There was a fight between President Rutherford B. Hayes and Congress about African-Americans voting. It ended in the first ever government shutdown.

Music: "Hakoniwa," "Salmon Smash" and "Broke Me."

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Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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Sarah Gonzalez
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Ailsa Chang

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