Topic summary
Bank runs
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Bank run.
History
Bank runs first appeared as a part of and its subsequent contraction. From the 16th century onwards, English goldsmiths issuing promissory notes suffered severe failures due to bad harvests, plummeting parts of the country into famine and unrest. Other examples are the Dutch tulip manias (1634–37), the British South Sea Bubble (1717–19), the French Mississippi Company (1717–20), the post-Napoleonic depression (1815–30), and the Great Depression (1929–39).