The South Sea Bubble

The year 1720 was really the first "modern" economic collapse, featuring both the collapsing Mississippi Bubble in France and the South Sea Bubble in England. These bubbles involved the national debt, financing speculative growth, derivatives, and hyperinflation. John Law was ahead of his time with his economic theories. And financial regulation was the result. There was a proposal in Parliament that bankers should be tied up in sacks filled with snakes and dumped into the murky Thames River.

See also: HOW THE FRENCH INVENTED SUBPRIME IN 1719.