South Sea Bubble Trivia Questions

Shares climbed from roughly £100 in early 1720 to around £1,000 by summer, then collapsed to under £150 by December.

It was granted a monopoly to trade with South America and the Pacific islands, not the East Indies—that was the East India Company's domain.

Newton initially profited and then reinvested heavily, losing around £20,000 (millions today). He famously remarked he could 'calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people.'

The company had no real mines; it was built on speculative hype and a monopoly to trade with Spanish colonies, which never materialized.

The South Sea Company was granted a monopoly on British trade with South America, and its stock price skyrocketed in 1720 due to rampant speculation before crashing, triggering a financial crisis.

Some directors had assets confiscated, and a few were imprisoned briefly, but most escaped severe punishment due to political connections and legal loopholes.

In 1711, the company was created to consolidate and manage government debt in exchange for a trade monopoly—a financial engineering scheme that fueled the bubble.

The Bubble Act forbade unauthorized joint-stock companies, but it was pushed through by South Sea directors to suppress rival schemes, not to regulate themselves.