When tulips came to the Netherlands, all the world went mad. A sailor who mistook a rare tulip bulb for an onion and ate it with his herring sandwich was charged with a felony and thrown in prison.

The flower was domesticated by the Ottomans, who planted vast numbers of bulbs in their palace gardens and were as fascinated by rare and exotic tulips as the Dutch at the height of tulip mania.

People were investing ridiculous sums of money into individual bulbs just so they could have that unique, absolutely rare tulip. "The situation was completely unsustainable. It only lasted about ...

Seeking a zesty accompaniment to his fish, the sailor had unwittingly pilfered not an onion, but a rare Semper Augustus tulip bulb. And in early 1637, tulip bulbs were reaching some truly ...