Just some 'Crazy things' that did happen in History.
Tulip mania- At the peak of tulip mania, in March 1637, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsworker. It is generally considered the first recorded speculative bubble (or economic bubble).
The height of the bubble was reached in the winter of 1636-37. Tulip traders were making (and losing) fortunes regularly. A good trader could earn up to 60,000 florins in a month– approximately $61,710 adjusted to current U.S. dollars. With profits like those to be had, nothing local governments could do stopped the frenzy of trading. Then one day in Haarlem a buyer failed to show up and pay for his bulb purchase. The ensuing panic spread across Holland, and within days tulip bulbs were worth only a hundredth of their former prices. The tulip bubble had burst.
Ponzi schemeThe scheme is named after Charles Ponzi, who became notorious for using the technique in 1920. The idea, present in novels (for example, Charles Dickens' 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit and 1857 novel Little Dorrit each described such a scheme), was actually performed in real life by Ponzi who with his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. Ponzi's original scheme was based on the arbitrage of international reply coupons for postage stamps; however, he soon diverted investors' money to make payments to earlier investors and himself.
Typically, well above-average returns are promised on the original investment and vague verbal constructions such as "hedge futures trading", "high-yield investment programs", or "offshore investment" might be used. The promoter sells shares to investors by taking advantage of a lack of investor knowledge or competence, or using claims of a proprietary investment strategy which must be kept secret to ensure a competitive edge.
Unraveling of a Ponzi scheme
When a Ponzi scheme is not stopped by the authorities, it sooner or later falls apart for one of the following reasons.
1. The promoter vanishes, taking all the remaining investment money.
2. Since the scheme requires a continual stream of investments to fund higher returns, once investment slows down, the scheme collapses as the promoter starts having problems paying the promised returns (the higher the returns, the greater the risk of the Ponzi scheme collapsing). Such liquidity crises often trigger panics, as more people start asking for their money, similar to a bank run.
3. External market forces, such as a sharp decline in the economy (for example, the Madoff investment scandal during the market downturn of 2008), cause many investors to withdraw part or all of their funds.
The O.J. Simpson trial"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."
O.J. Simpson struggling to put on a pair of custom-fitting leather gloves over a pair of surgical gloves.
Children's CrusadeIn the year 1212, tens of thousands of self-proclaimed, unarmed crusading children set out from northern France and western Germany to regain Jerusalem from the Muslims.
(though a study published in 1977 casts doubt on the existence of these events, and many historians came to believe that they were not (or not primarily) children but multiple bands of wandering poor" in Germany and France, some of whom tried to reach the Holy Land).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_CrusadeThe first Atomic BombBethe, Teller, Trinity and the End of Earth-A leader of the Manhattan Project recalls a discussion of whether the Trinity test would ignite Earth's atmosphere and destroy the planet
"Ignition of atmospheric nitrogen might cause hydrogen in the oceans to fuse".
Oppenheimer [soon to be appointed head of Los Alamos Laboratory] got quite excited and said, "That's a terrible possibility," and he went to his superior, who was Arthur Compton, the director of the Chicago Laboratory, and told him that. Well, I sat down and looked at the problem, about whether two nitrogen nuclei could penetrate each other and make that nuclear reaction, and I found that it was just incredibly unlikely.
But they set it off anyway,
...boy weren't we lucky?
blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/bethe-teller-trinity-and-the-end-of-earth/