The Dutch speculative mania associated with the 1637 tulip-market collapse is known as tulip mania.
During the Dutch Golden Age, rare tulip bulbs and contracts to buy them attracted intense speculation. Prices rose dramatically for some sought-after varieties, especially in the winter of 1636–37. In February 1637, confidence weakened and trading activity collapsed in several markets.
Later retellings often describe the episode as a national economic catastrophe in which ordinary people universally lost fortunes. Modern historians generally consider that picture exaggerated. The trade was concentrated, the evidence is incomplete, and the broader Dutch economy did not suffer a collapse comparable to a modern nationwide stock-market crash.
Tulip mania remains important because it illustrates how scarcity, status, leverage, and expectations can push prices away from underlying use. It was not a stock-market crash in the modern sense: the objects traded were tulip bulbs and contracts, not shares listed on a contemporary exchange.