October 17, 1973: The OPEC Oil Shock

October 17, 1973: The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) proclaims an oil embargo at its meeting in Vienna, Austria. It is targeted at nations perceived as supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War, which was ongoing at this point. (OPEC's headquarters has been in Vienna since 1965, even though Austria is not a member.)

The OPEC member nations are the Middle East nations of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar and Libya; the East Asian nation of Indonesia; and the South American nation of Venezuela. For those of you old enough to remember the 1990s, it may seem shocking to see Iraq and Kuwait working together. For those of you, like me, old enough to remember the 1980s (if not quite 1973), it may seem shocking to see Iraq and Iran working together. But it would take until 1979 for the Islamic Revolution to take over in Iran, and the same year for Saddam Hussein to do so in Iraq.

The targeted nations are America, Britain, Canada, Japan and the Netherlands. It is later extended to Portugal, and the apartheid nations of South Africa and Rhodesia.

In America, this drives the price of gasoline way up, and they had already gone up a lot this year, as a general inflation jacked up the prices of everything. It didn't help that President Richard Nixon was paying more attention to defending himself in the Watergate scandal than to the economy. Three days later came his firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, and of 2 aides who refused to help him do it, an event known as "the Saturday Night Massacre."

The embargo ended in March 1974, with the price of oil per barrel having gone up from $3 to almost $12. This had such an effect on the American economy that, when Time magazine named its Man of the Year for 1974, 9 months after the end of the embargo and 4 months after Nixon was forced to resign the Presidency, it didn't name Nixon; or his replacement, Gerald Ford; or any of Nixon's opponents, such as the new Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski, or House Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, or, collectively, the U.S. Supreme Court. It named King Faisal of Saudi Arabia.

One of the ways America dealt with the gas shortage was to institute the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit. Another was to ration gas: If your license plate ended with an odd number, you could buy gas on an odd-numbered day; if it ended with an even number, you could buy it on an even-numbered day. This policy would be adopted again in 1979, the next time an oil embargo was launched.

But there was another way America dealt with the oil embargo, which had nothing to do with cars: An additional reliance on nuclear energy. In 1979, a near-disaster at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania showed why that idea was so dumb.

UPDATE: It took me until 2024 to think of this, but the 1970s were Schrödinger's Decade. There was too much oil, and, at the same time, not enough of it.

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October 17, 1973 was a Wednesday. On the same day, Motorola engineer Marty Cooper was granted the patent for the handheld mobile telephone.

It was midweek for the NFL and college football. But Game 4 of the World Series was played at Shea Stadium. The New York Mets evened the Series at 2 games apiece with a 6-1 win over the Oakland Athletics at Shea Stadium. In support of Met starting pitcher Jon Matlack, Rusty Staub went 4-for-4 with a homer and 5 RBI. The New Orleans chef was really cooking that night.

A's manager Dick Williams was tired of team owner Charlie Finley's meddling, and told his players that, win or lose, he would resign when the Series was over. In the 8th inning, as a pinch-hitter, he sent Mike Andrews, the 2nd baseman whose 2 errors in the 12th inning of Game 2 at the Oakland Coliseum gave the Mets a win, and whom Finley had unsuccessfully tried to have removed from the World Series roster. The Met fans, showing an intelligence for which I tend credit them, gave him a standing ovation. He grounded out. It turned out to be his last major league at-bat.

There were 2 NBA games played that day:

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Golden State Warriors, 109-95 at the Milwaukee Arena. In 1974, it was renamed the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* And the Kansas City-Omaha Kings beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 108-106 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There were 3 ABA games played:

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Virginia Squires, 116-106 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

* The Carolina Cougars beat the Memphis Tams, 108-95 at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis.

* And the Denver Rockets beat the Utah Stars, 112-97 at the Auditorium Arena in Denver. The Rockets would become the Denver Nuggets at the start of the 1974-75 season.

There were 6 NHL games played:

* The New York Rangers beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-0 at Madison Square Garden. Eddie Giacomin had the shutout, and was backed by goals from Bruce MacGregor, Steve Vickers, Rod Gilbert and Jim Neilson.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Atlanta Flames beat the Boston Bruins, 4-3 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Vancouver Canucks, 5-0 at the Chicago Stadium. The team's name was always written as 2 words, "Black Hawks," until 1986, when their original NHL charter document was found, and it was seen that the name had been written as 1 word, "Blackhawks," and that's how they've officially written it since.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Philadelphia Flyers beat the California Golden Seals, 5-1 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. Finley owned them, too, and they went out of business, but not before playing the 1976-77 and 1977-78 seasons as the Cleveland Barons.

There were 2 games in the World Hockey Association:

* The Winnipeg Jets beat the New England Whalers, 3-1 at the Boston Garden.

* And the Houston Aeros, with 44-year-old Gordie Howe leading a line with his sons Mark and Marty, beat the Vancouver Blazers, 7-2 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

There was one more sporting event on this day that I should mention: The England national soccer team can only manage a 1-1 draw against Poland in a European qualifying match for the 1974 World Cup at the old Wembley Stadium in London. It means that England won't even qualify for the World Cup, and manager Sir Alf Ramsey, who guided them to the 1966 World Cup, is soon fired. Poland will go on to reach the Semifinals, their best performance ever. (They would match that in 1982, but have yet to surpass it.)

I have a separate entry for that event.

March 4, 1938: Oil Is Discovered In Saudi Arabia

March 4, 1938: Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia. The world will never be the same.

The Saudis didn't know if there was any oil under the land of their recently-founded kingdom. But in 1908, another Middle Eastern monarchy, Iran, struck oil. In 1932, so did another Middle Eastern monarchy, the neighboring island nation of Bahrain. And, as the capital of the Islamic world, the Saudis wanted control of that world, which would depend on having oil. So they began drilling.

Their 1st 6 oil wells, labeled Dammam Numbers 1 through 6, had all failed to develop by November 1937. So King Ibn Saud ordered a halt to all drilling except at Damman Number 7, which was twice as deep as the level at which Bahrain discovered theirs. On March 4, 1938, Number 7 drilled even deeper, and struck: 1,585 barrels of oil that day. Within a week, it was putting out 3,810 barrels a day.

With the demand for oil reaching a new high in World War II, Saudi Arabia became one of the most important countries in the world. After the war, both America and Britain were, essentially, addicted to oil. And the House of Saud acted like drug dealers, and the King like a drug lord.

In 1960, Saudi Arabia was a founding member of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In 1973, led by the Saudis, OPEC cut back on oil production, in retaliation for the West's support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. This threw America and much of the world into recession, causing massive lines at gas stations. In 1974, despite everything that happened in the Watergate scandal, it was King Faisal of Saudi Arabia that Time magazine chose as its Man of the Year. In 1979, OPEC retaliated against America again, for accepting the dying, exiled Shah of Iran into the country for medical treatment.

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and thus controlled 10 percent of the world's oil. It was feared that Saudi Arabia would be next, which would have given Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein control of 20 percent of the world's oil. After decades of military aid, due to the Saudis siding with the West during the Cold War, they should have been able to defend themselves if Iraq invaded. Instead, they called on America to do their job for them, and the Persian Gulf War resulted in Iraq being kicked out of Kuwait.

But American troops remained in Saudi Arabia. This led to terrorist group al-Qaeda attacking America, including, in 1996, bombing the U.S. base at the Khobar Towers, within 2 miles of the still-producing Dammam Number 7 well. On September 11, 2001, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi natives, as was their leader, Osama bin Laden. In 2002, President George W. Bush abandoned the search for bin Laden, and concentrated on kicking Saddam out of power in Iraq, so the U.S. could control their oil, and thus need Saudi oil less. This turned out to be a very stupid thing to do.

In the 21st Century, in spite of the move toward electric cars, America is still held hostage by the oil industry, mostly by Saudi Arabia.

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March 4, 1938 was a Friday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL had no games scheduled. So there were no games on this historic day.