The word "tulip" comes from "turban". The flower reached Europe from the Ottoman Empire, its name from a Persian word for turban — and the Ottomans had their own Tulip Period some 80 years after the Dutch mania.
The events
- Tulip mania1637 · Haarlem. In the winter of 1636–37 the Dutch traded tulip bulbs still in the ground through contracts signed in taverns, and prices for rare varieties soared. In February 1637 the market collapsed within days — though modern historians doubt it ruined many people.
- The Ottoman Tulip Period1718–1730 · Istanbul. Under Sultan Ahmed III the court embraced European fashions, Bosphorus palaces and tulips, paying fortunes for bulbs. The first Ottoman Turkish printing press appeared in these years. The era ended with the Patrona Halil revolt of 1730, which toppled the sultan.
More amazing facts
- 1633 · 1992 The Catholic Church admitted its error in the Galileo case 359 years later.
- 1633 The Ottoman sultan Murad IV banned coffee on pain of death.
- 1633 · 1757 'And yet it moves!' first appeared in print in 1757, 115 years after Galileo's death.
- 1636 · 1703 Harvard is 67 years older than St Petersburg: the Massachusetts college was founded in 1636, and Peter the Great founded his city on the Neva in 1703.
- 1637 In 1637 a single tulip bulb could cost more than ten years of a skilled craftsman's wages.
- 1638 Russia’s first tea arrived in 1638 with the envoy Vasily Starkov, a gift to Tsar Michael from a Mongol khan.