History House: Tulipomania - Like beanie babies and DrKoop, tulips used to be all the rage

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The U.S. Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center provides the starting point to this story. It goes to great lengths to detail the thievery and skull duggery that accompanied the introduction of the tulip to Holland. In 1593, botanist Carolus Clusius brought tulips from Constantinople to the University of Leiden in Holland, planting the bulbs in a small garden for purposes of medicinal research. He was a right stingy gardener and refused to give or sell any to the locals. Some of his neighbors, looking to make a buck (or florin, or guilder, or whatever) on the exotic new flower from Turkey and disappointed with Clusius's lack of capitalistic fervor, broke into his garden, stole some bulbs, and started the Dutch tulip trade.