How One Flower Destroyed an Empire: The Tulip Crash of 1637

In February 1637, a man walked into an auction house in Haarlem clutching a contract for a single tulip bulb worth 10,000 guilders—the price of Amsterdam's finest mansion. Within weeks, that same contract was worth less than an onion. This is the true story of Tulip Mania, history's first recorded financial bubble.

The Dutch Republic in the 1630s was the richest nation on Earth. They invented the modern stock market, created the first multinational corporation, and controlled global trade routes. Yet an entire nation lost its mind over flowers. How did the world's smartest traders convince themselves that tulips were worth more than gold?

This documentary reveals the shocking truth behind the 1637 Tulip Crash—from the Semper Augustus bulbs that sold for a lifetime's wages, to the weaver named Pieter who abandoned his craft to become a tulip speculator, to the catastrophic auction on February 3rd when nobody bid and fortunes evaporated overnight.

The Semper Augustus: history's most expensive flower

How "wind trading" created the first derivatives market

Why intelligent people fell for collective delusion

The psychological forces behind financial bubbles

What happened to families who lost everything

Why the Dutch economy survived the crash

This is not just a story about tulips. It's a warning about greed, mass psychology, and the dangers of believing something has value simply because everyone else believes it too.