Scottish Darien Collapse

This description of one of the most famous financial calamities - The Scottish Darien Scheme of the very late 1600s - below is worth watching, part of the BBC series on the history of Scotland. Basically, a frantic bubble to invest money in exploring part of the New World. It went badly, costing Scottish people about a quarter of their liquid assets by some estimates. According to the account here, it also drove political pressure to cement the union with England.