Latest / Ebbs of History / When a Flower Cost More Than a House
Transcript
- Jason: Welc Sorry. Welcome to the Ebbs of History, the show where we dive into the strangest, wildest, and sometimes downright creepiest stories the past has to offer. From dancing plagues to pirate queens, you'll laugh, you'll gasp, you'll even groan at my impeccable dad jokes. But, most importantly, you'll learn how history is way cooler than your textbook ever told you. We're your history-loving hosts, Zoe. Gavin. And I'm Jason, and in every episode, the three of us will take a quick trip through time and see what lessons we can still learn today. This is the Ebbs of History. How was everyone's week? Good. School started back up. Mm-hmm. So that's fun. I got really good teachers. So Yeah, you're pretty excited, huh? Yeah. Not a lot of friends in my classes though. So that's just another chance to meet new friends. I guess. That's exactly what I said. Mhm. Joey? It was good. It was the same as Gavin. First week of school, so we're getting still adjusted, but It was pretty good. Good. Our air conditioning is finally fixed. Yep. it's so nice. That's why there's been no episodes. Yeah, that's why we've been delayed in episodes. It's just been it's been too hot to record. But our air conditioning is now fixed, so I'm having a better week. Today we're off to the Netherlands in the sixteen thirties, where grown adults paid the price of a mansion for a single flower bulb. It's called Tulip Mania, history's most famous financial bubble. And the true story involves a secret virus, tavern trading, and one very unlucky auction. Let's start with a question. Zoe, what is the absolute most you would ever pay for one flower? A singular flower. A singular flower. Probably the max like five dollars if it was a really really good flower. Okay. Gavin, how about you? I was thinking like if it's like a really really good flower like ten dollars. Okay. Ten yeah. Hold those numbers in your heads because we're going to the Dutch Republic in the sixteen thirties and your number is about to look adorable. First, some scene setting. The Netherlands in the sixteen hundreds was the richest place on earth per person. This was the Dutch Golden Age. Dutch ships sailed everywhere. Amsterdam was the wall street of the planet, and a whole class of merchants had more money than they knew what to do with. And when people have more money than they know what to do with, they start collecting things to show off. Paintings, spices, exotic seashells. And starting in the fifteen nineties, a brand new status symbol that had just arrived from the Ottoman Empire, the tulip. I want you to understand how exotic tulips actually were. Northern Europe had never seen anything like them. Their colors were rich and more intense than any local flower, and they came from the same faraway trade routes that brought silk and spices. A famous botanist named Carolus Clusius planted some of the first tulips in the Netherlands at the University of Leiden. And the story goes that people wanted them so badly that they That thieves broke into his garden and stole his bulbs. The tulip craze began quite literally with a flower crime. Owning rare tulips became the sixteen hundreds version of a luxury watch or the newest phone. If a tulip bloomed in your garden, It told every visitor, I am rich, I am fashionable, and I know people in the global trade business. But here's where nature added a plot twist that nobody understood for another three hundred years. The most prized tulips of all weren't solid colors. They were quote unquote broken tulips, with feathery flames of white and red or white and purple licking up the petals, each one unique, like the flower had been painted by hand. The superstar was a variety called Semper Augustus, deep red flames on white. Considered the most beautiful flower in the world. Gavin, do you want to guess what actually caused those gorgeous flame patterns in these tulips? a mutation in like the plant. Okay. Well, it was a virus, a plant disease. Scientists figured out in the nineteen hundreds that a mosaic virus, spread by aphids, breaks up the tulips' colors and creates the flames. The most expensive, most desired flowers in human history were beautiful because they were sick. And because the virus also weakened the bulbs, the sickest, prettiest varieties were rare and hard to multiply. Which drove the prices even higher. Supply and demand. Brought to you by a plant getting the sniffles. Now, tulips have a quirk that turned this collector's hobby into a financial roller coaster. A tulip blooms for maybe a week or two in the spring, and the bulb spends most of the year buried underground, from roughly June to the following spring. You can't hand over a buried bulb. So, Dutch traders started buying and selling pieces of paper instead. contracts promising delivery of a specific bulb when it came out of the ground. Buying and selling things before they exist is called a futures market. And the Dutch already did it with grain and herring. Now they did it with flowers. and that's when things get weird. Trading moved into taverns, where groups of traders met in smoky back rooms called colleges, which make it sound much more educational than it is. These weren't quite business meetings either. Deals came with rituals, toasts, and rounds of drinks, and sales were sealed with payments of wine money. So every trade felt a little like a party. You could buy a contract for a buried bulb, then sell that same contract to someone else at a higher price a week later. Then that person sold it again. Some bulbs changed owners many times without ever leaving the dirt. The Dutch had a perfect name for this. Windhandel or Windhandel. The wind trade. Basically trading air. You guys got any thoughts on any parallels that you see today? Yeah. Based on what I've just talked about. Yeah, actually, 'cause recently we were trying to get these Pokemon donuts at Krispy Kreme and they sold out the pre order. Like the scalpers sold out the pre order and they were selling boxes on eBay that they didn't even own yet. Like that's like the first thing that like 'cause that's the that's just the most recent thing that happened. I heard you guys talking about it, but I didn't know what was going on. Yeah, 'cause like they were selling the boxes that they came in before it even It's a it it's definitely a form of a futures market. It's a little bit like sillier than that, but and just you know scalping in general. Okay. but also like cryptocurrency. Like I yeah. How so? Just like a different form of like trade value. Like a different form of trade. Okay, I can see that. Like a different parents. Not quite a futures market, but it is a different form of of trade. Yeah. Yeah. 'Cause I see the Dutch really like trade because at least at least in this beginning parts of US history, th like my group was doing like this like chart on the Dutch and like how they were in these early colonies and th like they were there f for the fur trade. They were there for getting land and like just selling land to people so that they could get over here. it was like they just really liked to trade and they really like I guess money a lot. Yeah, the Dutch were some movers and shakers back then, that's for sure. If you think about it, like they colonized a lot. they colonized a lot of Africa. I mean just look at South Africa. That was completely colonized by the Dutch. so yeah, they were the Dutch were We're definitely colonizers along with the British. yeah. Yeah. I think the British are just more famous for it. I think so, yeah. Between November sixteen thirty six and February sixteen thirty seven, prices went vertical. Contracts for even ordinary bulbs multiplied by twenty times in a few months. And the rare ones? Records mention prices of thousands of guilders, with the legendary Semper Augustus quoted at up to ten thousand guilders for a single bulb. Let me translate that. A skilled craftsman, a carpenter, or a master baker, earned around three hundred guilders in an entire year. A fine house on the world famous Amsterdam Canal cost about five thousand gilders. One flower bulb more than a canal house. one famous list from the time claims a single prize bulb traded for a pile of goods including wheat, rye, four fat oxen, eight pigs, twelve sheep, wine, beer, butter, a bed, a suit of clothes, a silver cup, and a thousand pounds of cheese. Cheese for a single tulip bulb. Some bulbs were considered too valuable to plant at all. Wealthy owners reportedly displayed the plain brown bulbs, which looked exactly like onions, on their mantelpieces like trophies. Keep the onion detail in your mind. It comes back later. Then came february third, sixteen thirty seven. A routine bulb auction in the city of Harlem. The auctioneers brought out the bulbs, opened the bidding, and something happened that had never happened before. Buyers didn't show up. Some historians point out that Harlem was suffering an outbreak of bubonic plague right then, which may have kept people home and hanging over everyone's mood. Whatever the cause, the auction flopped. And the news raced through the tavern colleges within days. Suddenly everyone wanted to sell and nobody wanted to buy. Prices fell to a tiny fraction of their peak within weeks. The wind trade had run out of wind. The bubble popped. The bubble popped, that's right. Now here's where the story you may have heard goes off the rails. The famous version says the crash destroyed the Dutch economy, that noblemen and chimney sweeps alike were ruined, and that desperate investors ended it all in the canals of Amsterdam. That version comes mostly from a Scottish journalist named Charles McKay. Who wrote a wildly entertaining book in eighteen forty one? Two hundred years after the fact, called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. McKay is also the main source for the story of a sailor who wandered into a merchant's home, saw a priceless Semper Augustus bulb sitting out, mistook it for an onion, and ate a fortune for breakfast. my god. Told you the onion would come back. Great stories. There's just one problem. And longtime listeners can say it with me. Question what you read. A historian named Anne Goldgar spent years digging through the actual Dutch archives, reading contracts, court records, and wills, and what she found rewrites the legend. The tulip trade wasn't the whole country going mad. She could identify only a few hundred people seriously involved, mostly well off merchants and skilled artisans who could afford to gamble. She found only thirty seven people who ever paid more than three hundred guilders for a bulb. And searching for all those ruined fortunes, she found fewer than half a dozen people with real financial trouble afterward. And even those cases might not have been the tulip's fault. No wave of bankruptcies, no economic collapse, and no evidence of anyone jumping into a canal over a flower. part of the reason the crash hurt less than you'd expect is that most of the money only existed on paper. Buyers had often put down small deposits on contracts, and when the market died, most of those contracts simply never got paid in full. Dutch courts largely refused to enforce them, treating the whole thing like a gambling debt. And after arguing many deals were settled for just a few percent of the promised price. The government basically told everyone to work it out among themselves and the mighty Dutch economy sailed on without as much as a hiccup. So where did the legend of the national ruin come from? From the sixteen thirties version of viral posts. After the crash, Dutch moralists flooded the country with pamphlets and satirical songs, mocking the tulips traitors, warning that greed and easy money led to disaster. Artists piled on to. There's a famous painting by Jan Bruegel the Younger that shows the entire tulip trade acted out by monkeys in fancy human clothes, negotiating, weighing bulbs, feasting, weeping in court, and generally making a mess of things. Those exaggerated warnings were what survived. McKay repeated them as fact two centuries later, and economic textbooks repeated McKay. the moral of the story ate the story. One last twist. Remember how the beautiful flames came from a virus that weakened the bulbs? Mm-hmm. Over the generations that weakness caught up with Semper Augustus and its flamed cousins. The lines died out. The most valuable flower in recorded history is now extinct. Today, growers can create similar patterns with healthy hybrid tulips, and the Netherlands, tulip crazy as ever, still grows billions of tulips a year and dominates the world flower trade. Huh. Interesting. I thought you were gonna say like that virus turned out to be the plague or something. The virus turned out to be COVID nineteen. That would have been w crazy. It mutated to humans. Historiography For nearly two centuries, the main source on Tulip Mania was Charles McKay's eighteen forty one book, which relied heavily on those hostile Dutch pamphlets written to mock the traitors, essentially treating propaganda as data. Modern historians went back to primary sources. And Golgar's two thousand seven book Tulip Mania, built on Dutch archival records like contracts, notary documents, and court cases, found a much smaller and less catastrophic event. One whose real damage was to trust and honor between merchants rather than to the economy. Economist Earl Thompson argued the wildest late stage prices reflected a rule change, since traders expected futures contracts to be converted into cheap options, making crazy paper prices weirdly rational. And historian Mike Dash highlighted the plague outbreak hanging over the final months. Scholars still debate how irrational the mania truly was, but nearly all agree the canal jumping catastrophe version belongs on the fiction shelf. Lessons we've learned today. guys. Anything that we can learn from today's story? What I realized is w was McKay a man? Yes. His first name was Charles. Charles McKay. He wrote and then that's the one that history really grabbed onto. And then and Golgar was a woman. So I find it interesting that history grabs onto the man's story other than the woman's story, even though the woman's story is rooted in facts and data. While I would normally one hundred percent agree with you, the Charles McKay wrote in eighteen forty one and Anne Goldkar was in two thousand seven. I'm just saying like nowadays. Like we still definitely today. But yeah. I I understand for that two hundred year gap 'cause that was the only story that was out on the out right now. But n nowadays there's there's an act more first hand primary documents that were sifted through. Right. And we still 'cause I learned about the McKay one. last year. Like I didn't even Yeah. what I find interesting is that the hype that we have today was based on propaganda. Yeah. You know, so you think about if today if a lot of stuff going on, the propaganda that you see is what they tell future history students in, you know, four hundred years. Yeah. What happened. When it's not true 'cause it's based on the propaganda. Yeah. I find that very fitting though. Yeah. That it was just based on propaganda. Like I don't know. It's just like it makes sense. Yeah. Gavin? People will believe things from historians even though they're not true. they have that fancy title next to their name. Yeah. Right. They people don't look at who's writing it, and we've gone over this before. but going off with that thought, Gavin, there was only one guy writing. Mm-hmm. two hundred years after the Tulip Mania. Mm-hmm. So he was the only one. So people would read it and be like, well this must be true because there's No other history saying that it's not right. Mm-hmm. You know, until another two hundred years later. But I feel like that's also the reason why it sounds fiction, you know, because there's only this one person making a story about it. Two hundred years later too. But what i if you w were in that situation, what else would you look at though? If there's nothing else and you know, 'cause in the eighteen forties there's not a lot going on like there is today 'cause we have, you know, the wealth of the prior generations to look at, but back then there was nothing really talking about the tulip mania until two hundred years afterwards. Yeah. What do you do at that point? You know, from a from a historical standpoint, when you're reading this What do you think you can do in your mind to say, Okay, I'm reading this and he's saying this, but is it true? When you have no other way to look for other evidence. Yeah. That's the tough part about like always checking your sources, but what if there's only one source? Exactly. Like you can't trust cross reference. Yeah. There's nothing you can almost do like It might not it might be one hundred percent true. Yeah, but there's that you don't know. Yeah. You have to, you know, keep that in your mind. Take what they're saying and form your own opinions about it is kind of what I'm trying to say here. Yeah. You know, i if something doesn't ring true, I feel like in the modern day though, like you'll there'll always be at least like two stories about one thing, you know? There's never really just one article. Yes. Today we have the exact opposite problem. there's too much and you have to find a more reputable and you know unbiased version. Mm-hmm. Exactly. And like Yeah, we definitely don't have the lack of sources problem anymore for things that happen today. I was also thinking that Back to the actual story, people will just believe because like someone says, this is so worth this is worth so much and they'll go, Okay, let me get in on it. Like they like they're not just thinking it through, like they're just going, this rich person or this person of status is saying something that is that they believe is true or they want you to believe is true so they make money and then and then you just feed into it, which is something that's ha all always happens. in now world. Yeah, okay. So I've got three written down and the first one is basically what you just said. If everyone around you is buying something just because its price keeps going up, that's not investing. That's a game of musical chairs. And the music always stops. Mm-hmm. These bubbles get created. You know, the housing market bubble that we had or the the dot com bubble that, you know, in the early The AI bubble that's happening right now. I feel like I I I think it's gonna pop soon. I know it will. Yeah. It's it it's it's happening. It's it's happening and people are warning people of it and nothing's being done. Yeah. I just read that o nearly a billion dollars has been donated to political campaigns this se this political season already. And that three quarters of it are from AI companies. There is a bubble coming. We are currently building the bubble. So if you have any common sense, just watch what's happening. Yeah. No, I've been I I've been watching it. I've been seeing. It's it it's happening and it's gonna pop soon. It's gonna Yeah. I don't know about soon. But it will pop. Eventually. Yep. Because right now and this is kind of a tangent, but right now all these big tech companies are pouring all this money into it. Yeah. And they're losing money on AI right now. Every single of these big companies, Gemini, OpenAI, Claude even. Chat GPT. Chat GPT. Well that's open AI. they're all losing money. at this moment. Because I think like almost the novelty has worn off. Yeah. No, no, it's still it's still gaining ground. I I understand where you're coming from, but I'm only I'm coming from a standpoint of I read a lot about this stuff right now. Like I'm really deep into it. So it's still rising because the general population has now gotten past the point of being weary of AI and they're now trusting of AI. So It's just starting to ramp up right now, I think. And pretty soon, yeah, the the the novelty the you know what you're right. The novelty has definitely worn off. Yeah. But I think the mistrust has gone away. Mm-hmm. And now they're trusting, you know, the general populace is trusting AI. Yeah. And that's what these big tech companies are waiting for. Because yeah, it's it's coming. It's coming. So I just don't use AI, you know. No, it's good. Like I just I just like So you jump on a browser and get like a accurate source. Yeah. You know? The problem is right now when you like when I search something on Google and I press enter, an AI overview comes up. Automatically the AI takes over and gives me answers. You don't even get the option anymore. Nope. That is the problem. That is a huge problem. That yeah. And then you can click into it and then you can go to their chat bot and ask more questions related to that. Yep. Exactly. Like e even if you're consciously trying not to use ASCII. And like Gavin. Like Gavin. Or me, 'cause I don't I don't like to either. and then 'cause I I've also fallen victim to the wait, I do have because it it suggests you other questions to ask based on what you searched. Yes. Like it's like would you like to would would you like me to blank about this? Like would you like me to go deeper? Would you like me to this? And they'll go, Yeah, I actually do need that. So I d so I use it instead of just going on to another search. This is not to say that AI is not helpful. Mm-hmm. No. I love AI because it helps me at work. I do a lot more I'm much more productive because I basically have an assistant helping me do high level stuff that I can't ask someone at work to do because they just, you know, they don't have the expertise in whatever I'm doing. Right? So I've got this extra assistant helping me out. AI is great. It's the business model around the AI that is the problem and will be the problem and the cause of the bubble that will pop eventually. I feel like in work it's great to make you more productive, but in like a school setting, it's just like it's used to chi, you know? Yeah, it can be. So it has its pros and cons. Absolutely. In a school setting and in it in in a generative art setting, it's not beneficial at all. Not at all. Like I don't one of the main reasons why is because like it's taking so many opportunities away from people and then I this is kind of going off of to not really going on to the mania, but it's just like talking about like the AI and how it is. It's just like it just feels like when I enter the workforce and when I go and apply to colleges and go and do that stuff, there's just not going to be enough positions because AI is gonna be there. Robots are going to be there and it's just I don't know, in my head, I wanna like I I've almost extrapolated it to this huge thing. So you are still in the fear of AI part that I just talked about with the general society, you know, we're getting into the trusting part. You're still in the fear part, which is what I have instilled in you. Yeah. Raising you to is to question things and that's why you're still in the fear part, which is a good thing. Mm-hmm. At the same time you need to temper your fear. You know, your fear. Because everybody is saying right now that AI is gonna take over everything. It's not going to. Okay? Not in our lifetime at least. But like they're it's not per AI is not perfect. Okay. So you do need to temper your fear. But I wanna bring this back to Tulip Mania. How does this the AI stuff here, this bubble that's being created, kinda compare to the tulip mania? Any idea? Any thoughts? Well, if you're talking about the money aspect of it, like it's just like the big tech company is putting funneling so much money into it, just like these rich people were funneling so much money into these bulbs. Ding ding ding. Good job. Gavin, any thoughts? It's just like a novelty kind of thing. Like once a novelty wears off, which is kind of already doing, people are gonna kinda just like let it go and like like not that it's gonna go extinct, but like people are gonna start using AI a lot less, I feel. Yeah. I can equate it a little bit with that Semper Augustus. That if you look at it now it's extinct, right? Yeah. It was just a a commodity at the time. Or a not even a commodity, just a it was an item. Yeah. That everybody was fascinated with. And it happens all the time. remember fidget spinners? Yeah. They were the biggest thing in the world for a long time, for a little bit. You know, and then it just it moves through cycles and at this time it just happened to be the tulips. But it wasn't even the story that we know today isn't what happened. It wasn't as big as everybody makes it out to be today. Yeah. Good discussion, guys. Yes. Okay. People said tulips could never lose their values in sixteen thirty-six, and versions of that exact sentence have preceded almost every economic bubble since. So back then it was tulips, then it was fidget spinners, and then it was I remember it was Furby's one year for when I was a kid for Christmas. And then Furbies happened again later on during your guys when you guys were growing up. So like it it it it did. It came back. Not as big as the the first one that I remember, but yeah, back when mom was a kid. Cabbage patch kids. Mm-hmm. They were the hugest thing in the world. Like people were crushing to get them and paying thousands of dollars. And I think it's even worse now because of the internet. Yeah. You know, you've got this global market now where things can really explode. And now it's like Pokemon cards. Like there's so much scalpers and it's kinda just like in the scalping it's just ruining the community of it. It is. You know? Yes. Like the Kid, the target demographic can't acquire this without spending an arm and a leg. And so it's just making the cards like they forget about it and they move on. Yeah. To some to the next thing. 'Cause like we were at GameStop the other day and a pack of cards was like ten dollars of Pokemon cards. Like one like single like pack. Well that's different That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about the scalpers who who buy all those take out the good ones and try and sell them for thousands of dollars. And you were talking about the target market. Mm-hmm. The target market for those are children. Yes. Yeah. And I can't get it because these grown adults buying all of them. That's right. Just to make a profit. Greed. Yes. You just wanna play a game and be really good at the game. Yes. I I just y You wanna be the very best that no one ever was. But you can't do that because everyone's buying all the Pokemon. Alright, another lesson. To be suspicious of stories that are a little too perfect. This is kind of a running theme. I always say this. Ruin Noblemen and Canal Tragedies made a better sermon than some rich merchants lost deposits. Cause that's basically what it was. and the better of the s the better story won for the last two hundred years. And lastly, value a group decision. A bulb was worth a house only as long as everyone else agreed that it was. Mm, that's a good one. That's a bar. Time for the Fun Fact Challenge! You guys know the rules? I'm gonna read the question. You can lock in any time. Best of three. Question one. What was the hidden biological cause of the gorgeous flame patterns on the most A tulip virus? Close enough. A mosaic virus. For see, I knew it was a virus but like I didn't know if you wanted a specific like name, which I didn't write down. No, it's fine. It was a mosaic virus. Do you guys remember how it was spread? No. What bug? No. It was spread by aphids. And this virus broke the tulip's colour into flames and also weakened the bulbs. Alright. Zoe's winning. One nothing. Question two. What was the mocking nickname Dutch traders had for buying and selling contracts? Ooh, you even gave it to me in Dutch. Good job, dude. Winhandel Vinhandel. The wind trade, which also meant Air trading air. Trading air. Alright. Tide game, going into question three, you ready? The famous eighteen forty one book that spread the exaggerated version of Tulip Mania included the sailor who ate a priceless bulb thinking it was an onion, was written by whom. McKay. I got the first name. William No Charles Charles McKay. Do you guys remember the name of the book? No. No. It was a long one. Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. I don't think I said that during the Nook. Or it was very fleeting, it was passing. Yeah, I don't remember saying it. Alright, Zoe wins this week. First time in a while. No. Because Mo can't make fun of you anymore. because because this, because that. That's the only reason I'm losing. Ever since this new you could lock in during the question, it's been throwing me off. Uhhuh. But I think I've gotten used to it now. Okay. Well I know I won last episode. of course. Well that doesn't count because that's kinda different. I'm writing the questions different too, so I can get through more of the question. Mm-hmm. Before you locked in. Because I I don't like when I have to when I first start the question and you guys lock in right away and I've got like a half a paragraph. Then I gotta read the whole thing again anyway. So I like yeah. I was about to lock in earlier because I thought you were gonna ask what it was shaped like. And and then you said onion and I went Exactly. You gotta wait till the end for the actual question. huh. This day in History! ⁓ Today is September third, and here are a few things that happened on this day. September third, seventeen eighty-three, the Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the American Revolutionary War. Great Britain formally recognized the independence of the United States, and a brand new country's borders were drawn, stretching all the way west to the Mississippi River. Here's a thought. We declared independence. independence on well july second, seventy six. We know that. But Britain officially recognized it on s today, September third, seventeen eighty three. So which one should we celebrate? If you're going at it from an American perspective, probably the second. But if you're going at it from a British perspective, probably September third. Yeah. It's just like it depends on where you're from and like, you know? Yeah, no, I agree. Because our our version of it was, you know, heroic people rebelling against a tyrannical king. Mm-hmm. Right? And so we're proud of that. Mm-hmm. Whereas the British They're like, okay, fine, you can you can go. Yeah, they lost a colony. What seven years later? Yeah. Over seven years later. But I feel like gaining and recognizing independence is kinda different, you know? It totally is, and that's why we celebrate on fourth of July. So that even that's wrong. And even that's wrong, but yeah. All right, number two. In eighteen thirty three, the New York Sun published its first issue launching the era of the Penny Press. Cheap newspapers sold on street corners by newsboys meant ordinary people, not just the wealthy, could afford the daily news, changing journalism forever. Talk to the NS. We talked about the sun. You talk to the owner of the sun. You talk to God. We are big fans of Ted Lasso in this home. that's the newspaper that they put the the moon bats in the news. I I I recognize that name. Not just from Ted Lasso. And then finally, now I'm gonna read this one and I want you guys to let me know if we should do an episode on it because I have a nice I I read a great article about it and I wanted to Do it, but I wasn't sure if you guys would even like it. So when I say it, think about that. September third, nineteen sixty-seven, Sweden pulled off Dogin H, switching the entire country from driving on the left side of the road to the right side of the road overnight. At four fifty in the morning, all traffic stopped, everyone carefully crossed over, and at five o'clock the country started driving on the other side. Sounds actually kinda interesting. That's crazy. Yeah. There was a lot there is a lot behind it. huh. I feel like as maybe like a mini episode. It's out. Or like a section of a episode. Like how would you like the list episodes? I don't know if it's enough for a full episode, but I might like it being part of a list episode. Maybe part of a three a three parter. Not three parter, but like a a Yeah. With three different stories about stuff like that. that's good. Swedish history. Swedish history or just like crazy road stuff or something. I don't know. I like all these ideas. Let me think about it. And I'll come back to you. Okie dokie. All right, in sixteen thirties Holland, a virus painted flower became the most expensive object money could buy. Until one failed auction popped the balloon. The crash was real. The national catastrophe was legend. And tulip mania survived as history's favorite warning about prices, hype, and stories that are too good to check. That's it for this episode. Thanks for traveling through time with us on the Ebbs of History. If you like today's story, share it with a teacher, a friend, or your family on Instagram at Ebbs of History. If you have any show ideas, corrections, or questions, you can contact us at questions at ebbsofistory dot com. Signing off, this has been your co host, Gavin, Zoe. And me, Jason, reminding you that history is not just about dates and battles. It's about people, curiosity, and the weird, wonderful choices that shaped our world. Until next time. Keep wondering. Keep laughing. And keep learning through the ebbs of history. That was the best one until the end. I'm so sorry. I mean it kind of fit because you were laughing.