Tulips near the village of Grolloo in Drenthe Province, Netherlands

© plainpicture/Buiten-Beeld/Karin Broekhuijsen

Celebrating the first day of spring

March 20 marks the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, meaning that for the next six months daylight hours will outlast nighttime darkness, and we’ll see plenty of beautiful blooms like the tulips shown here. They were photographed in Drenthe Province of the Netherlands, a country that’s been famous for tulips since the 17th century. That’s when the price of tulip bulbs climbed to astronomical heights and then dramatically collapsed in what’s since become known as the first economic bubble, dubbed ‘Tulip Mania.’