Oil and the Internal Combustion Engine

In 1859 Edwin Drake drilled a well at Titusville, Pennsylvania, starting the modern oil industry. At first oil was valued mainly for kerosene, a cheap fuel for lamps that replaced whale oil and candles in many homes. John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil in 1870 and came to control most American oil refining. Meanwhile, inventors developed engines that burned fuel inside a cylinder: Nikolaus Otto built a four-stroke gas engine in 1876, Karl Benz patented a gasoline-powered motor car in 1886, and Rudolf Diesel patented his engine in the 1890s.

Gasoline, once a waste product of kerosene refining, became valuable as automobiles spread. Oil was easier to transport and store than coal and packed more energy per kilogram, and it began to change transport, warfare and geopolitics, as navies such as Britain's switched from coal to oil before World War I.