The 1637 Dutch speculative mania often cited as an early financial bubble was tulip mania.
During the Dutch Golden Age, rare tulip varieties attracted intense interest among collectors and traders. Contracts for bulbs and future deliveries changed hands at rising prices, encouraging speculation. In February 1637, buyer demand weakened abruptly, and prices collapsed in the market commonly associated with Haarlem and other Dutch towns.
Older retellings presented tulip mania as a nationwide economic catastrophe in which ordinary people universally gambled away fortunes. Modern historians argue that the episode was more limited and that its overall effect on the Dutch economy was probably modest. Even so, it remains a famous example of how expectations and resale speculation can push prices far beyond practical value.
Tulip mania was not a stock-market crash in the modern exchange-traded-company sense. It is included in financial-crash history because it illustrates an early speculative bubble and sudden loss of confidence.