As history shows, multiweek shutdowns are relatively rare, but have become more common in recent decades. The government's most recent shutdown — from December 2018 to January 2019 — was the longest in history, timing out at 35 days. It was a partial shutdown, as Congress had passed some bills to fund several agencies before the deadline. Only a handful of shutdowns have lasted more than two weeks — and they were all within the last 30 years. That changed in 1980 and 1981, when U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti singlehandedly established the basis for government shutdowns.