History of Oil

	Around 3,000,000 years ago: Stone Age Vast underground oil reserves seep to the surface in sticky black pools and lumps, called bitumen. Hunters used bitumen (also called pitch or tar) to attach flint arrowheads to their arrows
	70,000 years ago Prehistoric people discovered that oil burns with a bright, steady flame. The first oil lamps were made by hollowing out a stone, filling it with moss or plant fibers, and setting the moss on fire. Oil lamps remained the main source of lighting until the gas lamp invention in Victorian times. The Greeks improved lamps by putting a lid on the bowl.
	6500 years ago People living in marshes added bitumen to bricks and cement to waterproof their houses from floods. They soon learned that it could be used to seal water tanks, waterproof boats (now known as caulking), and glue broken pots.
	3000 BC Mesopotamians of that era used rock oil in architectural adhesives, ship caulks, medicines, and roads
	2000 - 323 BC: Babylonian Times Massive trade of this “black gold” takes place throughout the Middle East. Entire cities were built with it. Most great buildings in Ancient Babylon relied on bitumen. It was the most important material in the world to King Nebuchadnezzar (reigned 604-562 BCE).
	6th century BCE Persians discovered that a thinner form of Bitumen, called naft, could be lethal in battle. Persian archers put it on their arrows to fire flaming missiles at their enemies.
	600-700 A.D Byzantine navy used deadly fire bombs, called “Greek fire,” made from bitumen mixed with sulfer and quicklime. Arab and Persian chemists discovered that petroleum’s lighter elements could be mixed with quicklime to make Greek fire, the napalm of its day.
	2000 years ago The Chinese began to drill wells in Sichuan. They used bamboo tipped by iron to get brine (salty water) for medicine and preserving food. They found oil and natural gas as they drilled deeper. The natural gas was burned under big pans to boil off the water and obtain the salt. The Chinese refined crude oil for use in lamps and in heating homes.
	323-30 BCE: Ptolemaic period Ancient Egyptians preserved their dead as mummies by soaking them in a brew of chemicals such as salt, beeswax, cedar tree resin, and bitumen.
	146 BCE When the Romans set the ancient city of Carthage on fire, the bitumen on the roofs ensured the flames spread rapidly and completely destroyed the city.
	67 CE: Middle Ages When enemies tried to scale the walls of a castle of fortified town, defenders would often our boiling oil down on them. The first use of boiling oil was by Jews defending the city of Jotapata against the Romans in 67 CE. The idea was later adopted to defend castles during the Middle Ages. Oil was extremely expensive, so the technique was probably not used often.
	1750 A French military officer noted that Indians living near Fort Duquesne (now the site of Pittsburgh) set fire to an oil-slicked creek as part of a religious ceremony. As settlement by Europeans proceeded, oil was discovered in many places in northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York-to the frequent dismay of the well-owners, who were drilling for salt brine.
	1780’s Swiss physicist Aime Argand (1750-1803) realized that by placing a circular wick in the middle of an oil lamp and covering it with a chimney to improve airflow, the lamp would burn ten times brighter than a candle, and also cleanly. This was the greatest breakthrough in lighting since the time of the Greeks. It revolutionized home life, making rooms bright at night for the first time in history.
	18th century People in Europe and North America realized that the fat from whales, especially sperm whales, gave a light oil that would burn brightly and cleanly. Demand for whale oil skyrocketed. The New England coast in North America became the center of a massive whaling industry, which was made famous in Herman Melville’s 1851 book Moby Dick.
	1846 Canadian Abraham Gesner (1791-1864) managed to make kerosene from coal in 1846, but oil yielded it in larger quantities and more cheaply. Kerosene quickly replaced whale oil as the main lamp fuel in Europe and North America.
	1847 The world’s first oil well is drilled in Baku on the Caspian Sea, what is now Azerbaijan . Known as the Black City, Baku produced 90 percent of the world’s oil by the 1860s.
	1853 Polish chemist, Ignancy Lukasiewicz discovered how to distil oil on an industrial scale. He set up the world’s first crude oil refinery in Poland.
	1858 James Williams (1818-90) dug a hole in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada, and found oil bubbled so rapidly he could fill bucket after bucket. This was the first oil well in the Americas. Within a few years, simple “derricks”- frames for supporting the drilling equipment, dotted the landscape.
	1859 Edwin L. Drake drilled down 70 feet (21meters) in Titus, Pennsylvania – and struck oil to create the US’s first oil well. Oil was first discovered when a homemade rig drilled down 70 feet and came up coated with oil. This rig was near Titusville (in northwestern Pennsylvania) and was owned by "Colonel" Edwin L. Drake.
	1890s Mass production of automobiles began, creating demand for gasoline. Prior to this, kerosene used for heating had been the main oil product.
	1920 There were 9 million automobiles in the United States and gas stations were opening everywhere.
	1950-present Oil became our most used energy source because of automobiles.
	1960 The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was formed by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. The group has since grown to include 11 member countries.
	1970 Production of petroleum (crude oil and natural gas gas plant liquids) in the U.S. lower 48 States reached its highest level at 9.4 million barrels per day. Production in the lower 48 States has been declining ever since.
	1973 Arab Oil Embargo- In 1973, several Arab OPEC nations embargoed, or stopped selling, oil to the United States and Holland to protest their support of Israel in the Arab-Israeli “Yom Kippur” War. Later, the Arab OPEC nations added South Africa, Rhodesia, and Portugal to the list of countries that were embargoed. Arab OPEC production was cut by 25 percent, which caused some temporary shortages and helped oil prices to triple. Some filling stations ran out of gasoline and cars had to wait in long lines for gasoline.