Episode Details
Back to EpisodesThe Dutch East India Company — Spies, Spices and the Birth of the Stock Market (Part One)
Season 1
Episode 162
Published 3 weeks, 5 days ago
Description
One man. A stolen map. The birth of modern capitalism.
In 1583, a young Dutchman talked his way into the heart of Portugal's Asian empire — and spent six years quietly copying its most jealously guarded secrets. Routes. Charts. The knowledge that underpinned a century of Portuguese dominance over the world's most lucrative trade.
When he sailed home, everything changed.
Within two decades, the Dutch had smashed the Portuguese monopoly, invented the tradeable share, built the world's first stock exchange — and accidentally created the world's first financial scandal in the process.
The Dutch East India Company didn't just dominate global trade. It rewrote the rules of money itself.
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