Hey everyone. This is Gary. I'm off this week traveling and attending a conference and while I'm away I've lined up some vintage episodes and deep cuts that most of you probably haven't heard before and even if you have heard, a refresher never hurts.

I'll be back again with brand new episodes on January 30th.

In the 17th century, the Netherlands was struck by the world's first investment bubble. They weren't

investing in stocks or bonds or real estate. They were investing in tulip bulbs. Tulip bulbs became

a mania and even common people were spending money on tulips.

The price of some tulip bulbs rose so high that at one point a single bulb was worth more

than ten times the annual salary of a laborer.

Learn more about Tulip ManMania on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Today the Netherlands is associated with tulips. They produce more Tulips than any other nation in the world

even though it's a relatively small country. Every year the country produces over 3 billion tulip bulbs

mostly for export.

However, tulips are not native to the Netherlands.

Just like how tomatoes are not native to Italy and potatoes are not native to Ireland,

the tulip did not come from Europe.

Tulips originally came from Central Asia,

in particular the region around the Tian Shen Mountains

in what is today Turkmenistan, Tajikistan,

Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and northwestern China.

There isn't a single mention of tulips anywhere in antiquity.

Nothing from Rome, Greece, Persia, India, or China.

Nothing. It's believed that the Tulip was first cultivated by the Persians

around the 10th century. It was then that the Tulip began being mentioned in texts.

From Persia, the Seljic Turks brought it into what is today

...