Bubbles

the higher up, the farther the fall. This has been the case with every financial bubble in history, housing, banking, railroads, and even flowers. It turns out you can find the value in anything and everything, including the tulip spring is beautiful in the Northeast, and not just because of the blooms on the trees after months of a gray, depressing winter, but also because of the many parks that chose to plant tulip bulbs to brighten up their flower beds. It's

a good choice. You can get them in nearly every color, and they stand head and shoulders above most blooms. Plus they're cheap, which is always popular with local governments. It's hard to imagine a time when tulips were so rare, so popular, and so expensive that they lifted the markets of an entire country. But that's what happened to the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Now a lot of you have heard even here about tulip mania or tulip fever.

The wildest story from that period is that there was a sailor that thought that the bulb of a rare tulip called Semper augustus was actually an onion, so he chipped it up and ate it with his herring sandwich. That likely disappointing meal got the man thrown in prison. Semper Augustus, if you've never seen it, is a beautiful tulip with a flamelike stripe design of red and white

on the petals. The bulbs individually cost ten ten thousand guilders, which was more than most Dutch families would see in decades. It was enough to buy a grand mansion with a plum view. It was enough to get a man who made a simple mistake locked up. So how did the

Netherlands become the hub of this madness. Tulips were first introduced by the Ottoman Empire in the fifteen nineties According to one story, it was the Dutch ambassador to the Ottoman court that noticed the beautiful flower and sent several samples to a botanist friend back home. The flower became an oddity after that, and then a status symbol thanks to the unique shape and the bright colors. And then

a funny thing happened. The tulips exploded across Europe. It was the topic of conversation everywhere, and they began taking on value. Color, size and pattern could increase or decrease the price of the bulbs. Prices first started going up in the sixteen thirties as the country's overall wealth was growing thanks to that famous Dutch East India company. This combined with a newfound thaca and study of the natural world,

meant that the time was ripe for the tulip. Unfortunately, for the Dutch, this was often a time consuming process. Tulip bulbs that came from seeds can take up to twelve years to finally flower, although many didn't take quite that long. People began paying more for what they called broken bulbs of tulips that had striped or multicolored patterns on their petals because they were so unpredictable. Naturally, they

grew to be in the highest demand. Think of it like opening a pack of Pokemon or magic the gathering trading cards. It was a gamble and people were happy to pay for the chance to win. For all that time and money, though, people only got to enjoy the actual flower for about a week, maybe just a little longer, but it was a week to be celebrated for sure. Prices grew and grew and grew, until one day the

bubble burst. The fall was sharp and fast. Suddenly they weren't even worth one hundredth of what people had previously paid. According to Scottish writer Charles Mackay, writing two hundred years after in eighteen forty one, everyone from the aristocrats to the chimney sweeps had taken part in the craze, and the desolation of the market consumed more than a few fortunes. It's a very neat story, and one that we've certainly heard before, of ambition, greed and collapse. There's just one

tiny problem. We don't know if tulip fever was real. Historians have begun taking a harder look at Mackay and other sources to determine the true impact of tulipmania and found its lacking. It's true that there was a booming tulip trade in the Netherlands in the early sixteen hundreds, and some people really did spend an outrageous amount on

certain types of bulbs, but those cases are outliers. Stories like that of the sailor who ate the bulb thinking it was an onion, or of poor street sweepers wandering the gutters looking for a bulb that might make them rich, didn't actually happen and were actually propaganda by Calvinists who feared the growing consumerism that was sweeping the increasingly prosperous Netherlands. This flower was a flash in the pan for the country, and contrary to popular belief, likely didn't collapse an entire

economy when demand dried up. The number of tulips it would take to do that would be utterly overwhelming to the senses. I mean, honestly, just think about the pollen count. Some stories are so old we have to take them on faith. When presented with a myth and a lack of evidence, sometimes we simply accept what little we're left with. An apocryphal story is often better than none at all. And even if the legend doesn't make sense, it's certainly a lot more fun than whatever the truth might be.

Right back in sixteen seventy four, an officer in England's Royal Navy arrived in America was Christopher Billup, and he'd been placed in charge of an infantry that had traveled overseas. With him. Along for the ride was a new Royal Governor of New York, a man named Edmund Andros. Billup decided to make his home on a small island off the coast of New Jersey. He'd been granted a patent for just over nine hundred and thirty acres of land on its southern tip, as well as an additional thirty

acres of salt meadow to the west. Prior to Billup's arrival, the Dutch controlled the area. Their land grant stated that they owned everything on the western side of the Hudson River. The director of the Dutch India Company itself, Michael po, had obtained the deed from the Native Americans there for what would eventually become Billups Island. Well. Some thirty years after the Dutch had claimed the region, the British sailed in and took over, and to everyone's surprise, they did

it peacefully. New Amsterdam now belonged to Great Britain, and King Charles the Second, who was in charge of England at the time, generously handed over control of that land there to his brother, James, the Duke of York, so they called it New York. With New York and New Jersey now under the purview of the British, it was time to set some ground rules. James established ownership among the colonies and declared that any territories west of the

Hudson River belonged to New Jersey. Say for a handful of islands that were still considered part of New York. But there was one island that had found itself in the middle of a dispute between the two provinces. You guessed it. It was the same island that Captain Billup now called home. The Duke of York was in a quandary. If he allowed New York and New Jersey to continue to fight over this small territory, they'd be at odds

over taxes and tariffs forever. He needed to make a decision, But rather than issue one outright, he chose instead to turn it into a wager. He said that if an island in the harbor could be circumnavigated in only twenty four hours, then New York could claim ownership. And the man he chose to sail around this particular island, why it was the person who now lived there, of course,

Captain Christopher Billup. Billip was contracted by the Duke himself to circumnavigate the island, a job he was perfectly qualified for. After all, he'd already spent years in the British Royal Navy and was well versed in sailing across the ocean. This, honestly would be a piece of cake. In sixteen seventy five, Billip boarded his ship, the Bentley, and set sail. He traveled around the island in just over twenty three hours, squeezing in a victory under the Duke of York's one

day limit. Billip had not only secured the island for New York, but he'd also earned himself another hefty parcel of land there as well. At least that's how the legend goes. You see, there's no evidence that such a race ever occurred. We have no paper trail to follow, and all that remains are a handful of news articles written in the early twentieth century, and a whole lot of speculation. This is a story that has been passed down through generations and as such has become something of

a New York myth. Regardless of whether or not you believe it, this is the story we have. It may be apocryphal, but it's a fun and exciting way to imagine how one man helps settle the ultimate debates between New York and New Jersey, not who has the best pizza, but who owns Staten Island. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by

me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.