Tulip Mania


Tulip Mania

History's first major asset bubble. Tulips were introduced to Europe from the Ottoman Empire in the mid-1500s and became very popular in the Netherlands. As they grew in popularity, prices for tulips rose steadily, then unsustainably, in the 1630s. Prices suddenly collapsed in February 1637. Interestingly, tulip mania resulted in the creation of a formal futures market and marked one of the first times when contracts were traded without exchanging the underlying asset.