TULIPMANIA: How An Entire Country Once Went Crazy For Flower Bulbs

Print via GoldgarLast week, 376 years ago, the Dutch government gathered to resolve a pressing issue: it's tulip sector was melting down.

If a tulip sector sounds absurd now, you may be surprised to learn it was viewed with equal curiosity and disdain then.

"I don't know what kind of angry spirit was called up from hell," a contemporary wrote in 1648. "Our descendants doubtless will laugh at the human insanity of our age, that in our times the tulip flowers have been so revered."

Dutch tulips were the modern world's first speculative asset to see prices scream higher, then melt down in almost nuclear fashion.

But they weren't the last. And that's why the incident has persisted in modern memory.

Using historian Anne Goldgar's 2007 "Tulipmania" as our guide, we bring you this curious but most instructive story.