Today is Oil Nationalization Day, a public holiday in Iran. This day marks the anniversary of the nationalization of the oil industry in 1951, seen as a key step in Iran’s independence from the West.
By the end of the 1940s, there was a growing resentment in Iran to the huge imbalance in oil revenues that the British government and the Iranian government were receiving from Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), formerly the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Similar arrangements between the US and countries such as Saudi Arabia seemed more equitable and in 1950, Britain offered new concession to Iraq with regards to oil revenue.
This fueled a surge in anti-British rhetoric, with the leader of the National Front of Iran, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh leading calls to end foreign influence in Iran and nationalizing the oil industry. Mosaddegh then moved quickly and on 15 March 1951, he passed a law nationalizing AIOC with immediate effect, which was verified by the Iranian parliament two days later. He gave all British employees of AIOC a week to leave the country.
Sanctions were immediately placed on Iranian oil by other countries and severe economic hardships ensued in Iran. In August 1953, the government of Mosaddegh was overthrown by a military coup d’état orchestrated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (the following year the CIA overthrew the government of Guatemala) and the British Secret Intelligence Service. Mosaddegh was sentenced to three years in prison and then kept under house arrest until his death in 1967.
Tomorrow…Bread
‘MERICA!
Today is the birthday, in 1937, of Jerry Reed, US country guitarist who worked with Chet Atkins, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Elvis Presley. His signature songs included ‘Guitar Man,’, ‘East Bound and Down’ (the theme song for the 1977 blockbuster Smokey and the Bandit, and ‘She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)’. Reed died on 1 Sept 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJPM-M_Z65o
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