The 1637 Dutch market collapse involving rare tulip bulbs is commonly called tulip mania.
During the Dutch Golden Age, especially in the 1630s, contracts for certain tulip varieties traded at extremely high prices. In February 1637, sentiment reversed and buyers became unwilling to meet the prices sellers demanded. The market then collapsed for the most speculative contracts.
Modern historians caution against repeating the oldest exaggerated stories. The famous claim that the entire Dutch economy was ruined is not supported by the evidence, and the scale of trading and losses remains debated. Tulip trading was important as a financial curiosity, but it was smaller than many later stock-market crashes. The episode remains a standard example of speculative bubbles and the danger of assuming that rising prices must continue.