This is an IHeart podcast.

Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity's, A production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

Today we take the stock market as a given.

Every developed nation has one, and anyone with extra cash, sees it as a good idea to invest.

It allows startup companies to grow quickly, and it allows the middle class to have a retirement fund. But at the end of the day,

it's all about perceived value, how much the market, aka human beings, think something is worth.

And when that perceived value proves to be way off from the actual value of a stock,

well, then we call that a bubble. One of the first examples of this happened over 300

years ago, and when it burst, it almost took all of England with it. In the early 1700s, England

already wasn't doing so great. The monarchs of Europe conducted wars like they were a regular

part of doing business, and England had racked up quite a bit

of debt from all the fighting. On top of all of this, there was still quite a bit of fighting

over the English monarchy itself. Politician John Aesleby, along with several of his fellow

politicians, formed a committee to address the national debt. At first, they conducted several

lotteries, just like the ones we have today,

where participants pay a small amount on the tiny chance that they'll win a huge sum. The government

takes some of the profits and then uses them how it sees fit, such as paying off the national debt.

But this was too slow a solution for England's significant financial woes. And so,

the politicians turned to another

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