A History of Oil

Episode 20 - Swords into Plastics

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This is how a Reich ends, not necessarily with a bang but a shortage.

 

The Sandman Over Ploiești

Caputred in time, 1st LT Robert Sternfels at full throttle.

 

General Lewis Hyde Brereton

Tasked with the raid.  

 

How Low is Too Low?

To even get close, Brereton turned U.S. air doctrine on its head. Ploiești's refineries in the background.

How to Kill a Panzer

Soviet training poster. A shortage of fuel will also work.

 

This is how a Reich ends, not with a bang but a shortage.

Episode 19 - War And Rumors of War, Part II

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Japan's grab for oil ends badly.

 

War comes to US Soil

 

The First Draft of History

Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy" address to the U.S. Congress.

 

Balikpapan by Sea

Retaken by Australian forces in Operation Oboe Two, 1945.

Episode 18 - War And Rumors of War, Part I

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War returns as Hitler's gamble in the East goes horribly wrong.

Begining of the End: Operation Barbarossa

Hitler's Directive No. 21: "The German Armed Forces must be prepared to crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign (Operation Barbarossa) even before the conclusion of the war against England."

 

The 1,800 Mile Front

It was in a word: massive.

 

General Heinz Guderian

Short of fuel when the snow began to fall.

 

Dateline: Barbarossa

 

Episode 17 - Going Native

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King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and John Philby alter the oil balance of the planet.

 

 

King Saud

The kind of leader who always took the long view. 

 

St John Philby

Also known as Sheikh Abdullah

 

St John Philby

Harry to his friends

 

The first great find

Wabar meteorite, as rediscorvered in 1966.  

Photo credit: James Mandaville / Saudi Aramco World / PADIA

 

Episode 16 - Filling Up on the Red Line

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Mr. Five Percent Draws a Red Line around Arabia, but will this new oil cartel last?

Mr. Five Percent

Calouste Gulbenkian

 

Fill'er Up!

Typical Standard Oil filling station from the 1920s. Previously located at 1123 Broad Street in Durham, North Carolina. Credit: Joyce Tipton

Episode 15 - The First Great War

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The sovereignty of oil has finally arrived. And it is going to be a very, brutal reign.

 

The Taube

Mistaken for a bird by soldiers on the ground?

 

Taxi de la Marne

But did they save Paris?

 

H.G. Wells' Vision of Future War

Ironclads of the land.

Episode 14 - A Sea of Troubles

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Winston Churchill’s famous leap into the "sea of troubles” of Persian Oil.

 

Young Winston Churchill

His fiancée Clementine Hozieron seated the right.

 

God Save the Queen

The HMS Queen Elizabeth. She never would have put to sea without Churchill's "demonic energy" and fuel-burning boilers.

Episode 13 - Tale of Two Revolutions: Part II

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Turmoil in Persia and the start of British petroleum interests in the Gulf.

William Knox D'Arcy

Holder of the exclusive 60 year oil rigths to Iran.

 

On the hunt for Iranian crude: blazing hot in the day, freezing cold at night.

 

Muzaffar al-Din Shah conceeds to a Constitutional monarchy.

Episode 12 - Tale of Two Revolutions: Part I

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Russia's Twilight Empire and the first of two revolutions that would reshape the geopolitical map.

 

Henri Wilhelm August Deterding

A whirlwind of a man, Deterding would tranform Royal Dutch into a global giant.

 

Young Joseph Stalin

An early booking photo, the "Man of Steel" was still "Koba" to his revolutionary conspirators in Baku.

 

The Revolution of 1905

 

Like flash paper, sympathy strikes spread across the Russian capital.

 

The Potemkin Mutiny

Events great and terrible were never really seared into the popular imagination until they were twelve feet high on the silver screen. Eisenstein's masterpiece can be viewed in full by following the link.

 

Episode 11 - This is Spindletop

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The Texas boom opens with a six ton bang at a place called Spindletop.

Spindletop

No one, not even in Baku, had ever seen a gusher like this before. 

Swindletop?

 The influx of conmen and hucksters had become so prolific that locals had taken to calling the place “Swindletop.” Credit: Texas State Library

Pattillo Higgins

One arm and a dream -- of oil.

The Gladys City Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Company

The Mogul Emperor Shah Jahan had constructed the Taj Mahal for the Empress of India. Pattillo Higgins would build an entire city of oil for a woman he met at Sunday bible study. Credit: Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum

The final resting place of the "Prophet of Spindletop," Mission Burial Park South, San Antonio, Texas.