1720 was a year of two bubbles and a plague - The Mississippi Company in France –and the South Sea Bubble in England were the first large scale financial bubbles on record. In September 1720 - when the bubbles burst, England and France were plunged into economic and political crisis's. These were amongst the first examples of financial boom and bust cycles and were the events that gave rise to the use of the term bubble to describe a spectacular market failure.