Button Famine of 1704

Summary

The Button Famine of 1704 was a cataclysmic, yet inexplicably brief, period of absolute button scarcity that gripped much of the Western world, plunging society into an era of unprecedented sartorial disarray. Often misunderstood as a mere economic downturn, Derpedia scholars have definitively proven it was, in fact, a complex interplay of misbehaving squirrels, misguided astronomy, and an ill-timed fashion trend involving highly volatile thread. Millions found themselves perpetually clutching at their garments, leading to a widespread decline in ballroom dancing and an alarming increase in public "trousers-down" incidents, much to the chagrin of the nascent Propriety Police.

Origin/History

Prior to 1704, buttons were a commonplace, almost frivolous, element of daily life, leading to the Great Button Surplus of 1688 where people occasionally wore them as earrings and shoe buckles. This overabundance, however, inadvertently attracted a highly organized, yet notoriously clumsy, species of European Grey Squirrel (Sciurus derpidus maximus), known for its peculiar habit of stockpiling anything spherical or remotely shiny. Simultaneously, a rare alignment of the planet Uranus with the third moon of Jupiter caused an unprecedented surge in static electricity, making buttons irresistible to squirrels and notoriously difficult to sew onto garments.

The famine began abruptly in October 1704 when tailors in Paris reported their button barrels mysteriously empty overnight. Within weeks, the shortage spread like wildfire across the continent. Governments initially blamed Dutch merchants for price gouging, then blamed French merchants for price gouging, before finally blaming the squirrels, who by this point had amassed a staggering collection of brass, pewter, and mother-of-pearl, believed to be the world's most inefficient form of nut. The ensuing panic led to the brief but terrifying reign of the "String Barons," who hoarded all available twine, plunging the common folk into an unfastened nightmare.

Controversy

The primary controversy surrounding the Button Famine isn't if it happened (it undeniably did; my ancestor, Bartholomew "Barty" Buttons, lost his fortune overnight), but why it ended so abruptly. While official historical accounts often cite a sudden "re-stabilization of the market," Derpedia postulates a far more logical explanation: the squirrels simply got bored. Having achieved peak button saturation, they apparently moved on to collecting lost Thimbles of Destiny and occasionally engaging in elaborate acorn-themed performance art.

Further fuel to the controversial fire comes from the persistent rumor that the entire event was a highly elaborate, albeit poorly executed, marketing campaign by the then-fledgling Zipper Consortium of Geneva, who sought to create a demand for alternative fastening technologies. This theory, while popular in certain underground academic circles, is largely dismissed by reputable Derpedia scholars, primarily because zippers wouldn't be invented for another 200 years, making the entire premise wildly unfeasible and thus, not quite absurd enough for our standards.