the.com/tulip mania
Dutch investors turned flower bulbs into gold, then discovered flowers die.
means A historical term for a speculative bubble where prices of an asset (originally tulip bulbs in 1630s Holland) become wildly detached from any real value before collapsing.
from Named directly after the event itself: in the Dutch Golden Age, rare tulip bulbs became luxury status symbols and speculative commodities, with contracts for a single bulb at one point reportedly trading for the price of a house. The market collapsed in 1637. The phrase 'tulip mania' was popularized later, notably through 19th-century writer Charles Mackay's retelling in 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' — though modern historians note Mackay likely exaggerated the frenzy's scale and economic damage for a good story.
- peak price
- one bulb cost a house in 1637
- viral cause
- a virus made petals streak, looked rarer
- crash speed
- prices collapsed within weeks, not years
- modern myth
- economists say the mania was overstated later