Four centuries ago, a whole country went completely crazy for tulip bulbs.
But why do we still talk about these flower-obsessed Dutch traders.
As you'll read, the story of tulipmania involves many timeless issues like behavioral biases, malfunctioning markets, inequality, and basic economic concepts like supply and demand imbalances.
Dutch tulips were the first speculative asset to see prices shoot through the roof, and then quickly crash.
And of course they weren't the last.
With the help of historian Anne Goldgar's 2007 "Tulipmania," Business Insider brings you this unusual and enlightening story.
Editor's Note: Former Business Insider writer Rob Wile contributed to an earlier version of this feature.
According to lore, Tulipmania had its roots in the Ottoman Empire when Suleiman the Magnificent noticed a flower.
An ambassador working at the court of Suleiman the Magnificent noticed the flower, which is native to Central Asia, was all over Constantinople. In the late 1500s, he decided to send some to a Botanist friend in Leiden, Clusius.
Source: Anne Goldgar, "Tulipmania"
Collecting stuff in general — from art to sea shells — was already big when Tulips began popping up in Europe.
Clusius told his sea merchant friends to pick up odd fish for him on their travels, and would exchange rare plants for "medals or unusual man-made objects."
Source: Anne Goldgar, "Tulipmania"
And there was also already robust trading platforms in Amsterdam.
The Amsterdam stock exchange opened in 1602. The Baltic grain trade, which had helped lead to the creation of the Dutch East India Company, had been operating as an informal futures exchange for decades.
Source: Anne Goldgar, "Tulipmania"
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