Tulip Mania 1637: Full Timeline
Early 1600s: Tulips Arrive
Tulips, introduced to the Netherlands from the Ottoman Empire in the late 1500s, became a fashionable luxury item among the wealthy in the prosperous Dutch Golden Age.
1634-1636: Prices Climb
Especially rare, virus-striped tulip bulb varieties became objects of intense speculation, with prices for some bulbs climbing to extraordinary levels — trading occurred both for physical bulbs and futures-style contracts for bulbs not yet harvested.
February 1637: The Collapse
Prices collapsed suddenly at a bulb auction in Haarlem in early February 1637, when buyers failed to show up, and the speculative market unraveled within days.
Aftermath
Because much of the trading happened via informal futures-style contracts rather than immediate cash transactions, the crash's broader economic impact on the Dutch economy is now understood by many historians to have been more limited than popular legend suggests — though it remains a foundational case study in speculative bubbles.