Tulips were once viewed as alternative investments in Holland

‘Tulip mania’ may have been the first financial bubble. It still shapes markets today

This podcast revisits tulip mania, the 1630s Dutch craze where rare bulbs were briefly traded like luxury assets. It unpacks the myths surrounding the event and shows how its legend continues to shape modern perceptions of financial bubbles.

Why Amsterdam looks so unique

The Netherlands' capital consists of concentric canals lined with towering, unusually thin row homes, an altogether unique profile in Europe and the world. When it was growing, the city was a key trade hub, and merchants wanted direct access to waterways. Canals were built like roads, and houses were required to be very thin to allow for more homes to line the canals.

The first ever IPO was issued by the Dutch East India Co., a spice company

It first offered shares to the public in the 1600s on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange to help finance its passages. The Dutch East India Co. succeeded in part due to its monopolistic hold over the East Indies at the time.

Beanie Babies used to be viewed by some as alternative investments

Beanie Baby stuffed animals were once a hot collector item with skyrocketing prices as people believed that the toys would significantly grow in value over time.

The world's weirdest flowers

We mostly marvel at the beauty of flowers, but some kinds of flowers are incredibly weird. This video highlights 15 of the world's strangest flowers, from the massive Titan Arum to the rare Lady Slipper Orchid.

In 2024, Americans bought over $7B of cut flowers

That's more than any other country in the world. Most of the flowers Americans purchase are imported, creating an economy that's both booming and reliant on dwindling natural resources.

Mini-portraits were shared as love tokens in Elizabethan England

Art historians are identifying previously unknown works by Nicholas Hilliard, Elizabeth I's court painter, whose thumb-sized watercolors on vellum served as love tokens, diplomatic currency, and status symbols. They were believed to be passed secretly between courtiers and monarchs.

Revisiting the ornamental hermit craze of the 1700s

One of the more elaborate gardening trends of the 18th century was the placement of a well-designed hermitage within the landscape, a throwback to the more religious antiquity and the Middle Ages. The trend went so far for some that they hired real live hermits, preferably older, bearded, and willing to stay quiet and out of the way. Read about the wild trend here.

How Van Gogh painted 'Irises' in an asylum

Van Gogh’s painting titled “Irises” (1889) remains one of his most-recognized works. Created soon after the artist checked himself into an asylum, the oil painting depicts flowers from the overgrown garden in the institution. Discover more about the work and other masterpieces Van Gogh constructed during a personally tumultuous time.

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Dutch immigrants to America brought 'Sinterklaas,' a tradition of gift-giving to children

Dutch settlers brought Sinterklaas—their tradition of celebrating Saint Nicholas on Dec. 6 with gifts for children—to 17th-century New Amsterdam (now New York), where American culture eventually reimagined the bishop into our modern portrayal of Santa Claus.

People often invest in alternative investments to diversify their portfolios

Because alternatives often have little correlation with traditional investments like stocks and bonds, adding them to a traditional portfolio can reduce its overall risk exposure.

Peter Brueghel's 'Hunters in the Snow' depicts winter beauty and hardship

The Dutch painter and printmaker is known for centering ordinary subjects at a time when protestant iconoclasts protested religious images and reduced the Church's role as an arts patron. The famous painting is often viewed as a cozy winter scene, but reveals the difficulties of harsh winters during the Little Ice Age in Europe.

Meet the Dutch art detective who's recovered a Van Gogh, Dali, and Picasso

Known by some as the "Indiana Jones of the art world," Arthur Brand has recovered more than 150 stolen paintings and artifacts. He works independently, existing as a helpful bridge between the police and the people who might know where the stolen art is hiding. He is motivated by the thrill of the chase more than any financial payoff.

Medieval elites prized narwhal tusks as mythical “unicorn horns”

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, narwhal tusks were believed to be unicorn horns, possessing healing and anti-poisonous properties. Coveted by Europe’s elites, they became royal gifts—with one even presented to Queen Elizabeth I by explorer Martin Frobisher.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Venture capitalists were once bullish on DTC brands

While a physical store can only hold so many objects, online retailers without the limits of four walls that could sell their products direct-to-consumer could theoretically be great investments. But they didn’t always provide investors with expected returns.

O’Keeffe discredited sexual interpretations of her flower paintings

In 1943, the artist famously explained her intention to call attention to flowers by making them large and detailed. O’Keeffe added that while she wanted people to notice her flowers, they ended up projecting their own associations that didn’t reflect her own ideas.

Danish cookies became a treasured Lunar New Year gift, thanks to their unique tin container

Hong Kong experienced an economic boom in the 1970s, which led to snacking, including on Western foods, becoming a cultural norm. Kjeldsens butter cookies became a popular treat, and their packaging, a distinct tin container, presented them as more refined than a simple snack. Instead, they were considered a worthwhile present for Lunar New Year.

The fish doorbell letting people help spawning fish

Utrecht, a city in central Netherlands, has implemented an innovative "fish doorbell" system at a river lock to assist migrating fish during their spring journey to spawning areas. This unique setup allows online viewers to participate in helping fish navigate through the locks. An underwater camera is installed at the Weerdsluis lock, streaming live video to a dedicated website, where viewers may press a digital button when they see a fish.

A weed from the mustard family facilitated the molecular era of botany

The small genome and rapid growth cycle of Arabidopsis thaliana have made it an ideal organism for genetic studies, with over 100,000 research papers exploring topics such as disease resistance, stress tolerance, and response to light. The first studies were done on plants that grew from seeds saved during the Hungarian Uprising of 1956.

Colonial Americans used tobacco, wampum, and land-backed notes to solve a chronic coin shortage

British coins rarely circulated in the colonies due to an unfavorable trade balance, forcing colonists to improvise. They traded in Spanish dollars, Native American shells, tobacco warehouse receipts, and eventually paper money backed by land rather than gold.

Mutual funds were first created and sold in the US in 1924

Mutual funds were created in 1924, became popular in the '80s and '90s when investors saw a better payoff. Since then, they’ve evolved to be one of the most popular investment options today.

In 1914, the Financial Times asked readers to redraw Europe for cash prizes

Two months in World War I, the newspaper invited readers to sketch postwar borders and submit peace terms for cash prizes. The contest captured public attempts to predict a new world order and foreshadowed modern crowdsourced forecasting. It's a wild look at how uncertain Europe's future was at the time.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

Thomas Edison created the first strand of electric Christmas lights in 1880

Edison strung electric bulbs outside his laboratory in 1880, and his business partner Edward H. Johnson first wrapped a tree in lights in 1882. It wasn’t until the lights were commercialized in 1917 that they became common in household Christmas decorations.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

High-heeled shoes only became associated with femininity in the 18th century.

High heels originated as practical men’s footwear—used by Persian cavalry and later adopted by European elites, such as Louis XIV, as symbols of power and status. Only in the 18th century did heels become associated with femininity, before periodic male revivals.

The true origins of the Western tumbleweed

Tumbleweeds are iconic features of classic American westerns, seen blowing across a desert landscape as a cowboy walks into town. But this species isn't native to the US Southwest. In fact, it was unintentionally imported from Russia. As farmers loosened the ground in the West, they created the perfect breeding ground for the Russian thistle tumbleweed to flourish there. Watch more on its history here.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

Fear or disgust related to clusters of holes and cracks, called trypophobia, may stem from evolutionary processes to help us avoid pathogens.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.