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Oil

Topics


Oil Spill in Alaska Teams of firefighters cleaning the Alaskan coast following the Exxon Valdez oil spill. (Photo by jean-Louis Atlan/Sygma via Getty Images)

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Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Oil Spill Cleanup In the months after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Exxon employees, federal responders and more than 11,000 Alaska residents worked to clean up the oil spill. Exxon payed about $2 billion in cleanup costs and $1.8 billion for habitat restoration and personal damages related to the spill. Cleanup workers skimmed oil from […]

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(Original Caption) View of petroleum spindletop.

Spindletop

The Need for More Oil By the mid-19th century, the tremendous effects of the Industrial Revolution had created a need for a cheaper and more convenient fossil fuel than coal; this need would be filled by petroleum. Edwin Drake drilled the first well specifically intended to extract oil in northwestern Pennsylvania in 1859, and by […]

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John Rockefellercirca 1930: American philanthropist, John Davison Rockefeller (1839 - 1937). (Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

John D. Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller: Early Years and Family John Davison Rockefeller, the son of a traveling salesman, was born on July 8, 1839, in Richford, New York. Industrious even as a boy, the future oil magnate earned money by raising turkeys, selling candy and doing jobs for neighbors. In 1853, the Rockefeller family moved to the […]

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TOPSHOT - The sun sets behind smoke rising from the LyondellBasell-Houston Refining plant in Houston, Texas, on April 20, 2020. - US oil prices crashed to unprecedented lows on April 20 as futures in New York ended in negative territory for the first time amid a devastating supply glut that has forced traders to pay others to take the crude off their hands. (Photo by Mark Felix / AFP) (Photo by MARK FELIX/AFP /AFP via Getty Images)

Oil Industry

The 19th century was a period of great change and rapid industrialization. The iron and steel industry spawned new construction materials, the railroads connected the country and the discovery of oil provided a new source of fuel. The discovery of the Spindletop geyser in 1901 drove huge growth in the oil industry. Within a year, […]

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Stories


Featured

Tycoon John D. Rockefeller Couldn’t Hide His Father’s Con Man Past

The Standard Oil magnate spent his whole life trying to bury the story of his dad’s dirty deeds.

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Truckers on strike

When Truckers Shut Down America to Protest Oil Prices—and Became Folk Heroes

The strike started when one driver, mad as hell about the OPEC oil crisis, turned off his engine and got on his CB radio.

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How FDR Charmed a Saudi King and Won U.S. Access to Oil

After this first meeting between a U.S. president and a Saudi king, FDR would leave behind a unique gift.

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A view of the Chernobyl Nuclear power after the explosion on April 26, 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine.

7 Deadly Environmental Disasters

From the Dust Bowl to the BP oil spill, explore some of the most notorious environmental disasters of the last century.

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This Day in History


2010

Massive oil spill begins in Gulf of Mexico

Natural Disasters & Environment
2009

Rare Bugatti found in British garage

Inventions & Science
1901

Gusher signals new era of U.S. oil industry

1989

Exxon Valdez crashes, causing one of the worst oil spills in history

Natural Disasters & Environment
1980

Oil workers drown in North Sea

Natural Disasters & Environment
1992

The Exxon Valdez captain’s conviction is overturned

Crime
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