An Animated History of the Tulip

When you think of tulips, you think of Hol­land and like­ly the great tulip bub­ble of 1637. But the his­to­ry of the tulip did­n’t start there. It start­ed in the Himalayas and then Turkey, where the Sul­tan Suleiman the Mag­nif­i­cent first cul­ti­vat­ed and obsessed over these flow­ers in the ear­ly six­teenth cen­tu­ry. Like so many oth­er things, the Ottomans even­tu­al­ly brought tulips to Europe. By the 1550s, they popped up in Vien­na. Next Lei­den Uni­ver­si­ty in the Nether­lands. Fast for­ward a few more decades, and Hol­land found itself engulfed in tulip mania, the first record­ed spec­u­la­tive bub­ble in his­to­ry. Above, you can watch the his­to­ry of the tulip unfold in a short ani­ma­tion. It was cre­at­ed by Stephane Kaas for the Tulip Muse­um in Ams­ter­dam.

via Men­tal Floss

Relat­ed Con­tent:

16th-Cen­tu­ry Ams­ter­dam Stun­ning­ly Visu­al­ized with 3D Ani­ma­tion

Richard Feynman’s Ode to a Flower: A Short Ani­ma­tion

The Rijksmu­se­um Puts 125,000 Dutch Mas­ter­pieces Online, and Lets You Remix Its Art

Rembrandt’s Face­book Time­line