On this day in 1908, drilling in Masjed Soleyman (in Persia) struck commercial quantities of petroleum as a fifty-foot gusher shot up the drilling rig.
In the late 19th century Britain’s Royal Navy, under the leadership of Sir Winston Churchill decided to shift its fuel source from coal to oil; therefore the British admiralty and the War office became the de facto force behind the British government’s quest for oil. During the 1890s, research and reports were collected by the British foreign office indicating that Persia had great oil potential.
The British Foreign office selected William Knox D’Arcy, a millionaire investor, and provided him with the reports, promising him greater wealth and governmental support if he invested in the excavation of oil. In April 1909, D’Arcy was appointed a director of the newly founded Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), which would later become British Petroleum (BP). By 1911, APOC had run a pipeline from the oil field in Masjed Soleyman to a refinery at Abadan.
Workers of the APOC in 1908
Today is the birthday, in 1948, of merican singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks, from Fleetwood Mac who scored the 1987 UK No.5 single ‘Little Lies’ and 1977 US No.1 single ‘Dreams’, taken from the world-wide No.1 album Rumours. She scored the solo, 1981 US No.1 & UK No.11 album Bella Donna, and the 1989 hit single ‘Rooms On Fire’. Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 along with her then boyfriend, Lindsey Buckingham. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3ywicffOj4
