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Tulip mania was a period in the Dutch Golden Age during which contract prices for bulbs of the newly-introduced tulip reached extraordinarily high levels and then suddenly collapsed. At the peak of tulip mania in February 1637 tulip contracts sold for more than 20 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. It is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble. The event was popularized in 1841 by the book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, written by British journalist Charles Mackay. According to Mackay, at one point 12 acres of land was offered for a Semper Augustus bulb. Mackay claims that many such investors were ruined by the fall in prices, and Dutch commerce suffered a severe shock. Although Mackay's book is a classic that is widely reprinted today, his account is controversial. Modern scholars believe that the mania was not as extraordinary as Mackay described, with some suggesting that no economically meaningful bubble occurred. (more...)

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• A stampede in Jodhpur, India, on the eve of Navratri kills 113 and injures more than 250.
• The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is rejected by the U.S. House of Representatives, and the Dow Jones stock market index records its largest-ever one-day point drop of 777.68 points, or seven percent.
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September 30: First day of Rosh Hashanah (Judaism, 2008); Independence Day in Botswana

• 1399 – Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, deposed Richard II to become Henry IV of England, merging the Duchy of Lancaster with the crown.
• 1791 – The Magic Flute, the last opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, premiered at Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria.
• 1939 – World War II: General Władysław Sikorski (pictured) became Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile.
• 1966 – Seretse Khama became the first President of Botswana when the Bechuanaland Protectorate gained independence from the United Kingdom.
• 2005 – The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published controversial editorial cartoons depicting Muhammad, sparking protests across the Muslim world by many who viewed them as Islamophobic and blasphemous.

More events: September 29 – September 30 – October 1