Oil was found at Masjed Soleyman in southwestern Iran on May 26, 1908, and three years later was piped down to a newly built refinery at Abadan on the Iranian side of the Shatt alrab, not many miles below Basra. Its global importance was immediately recognized, not just by the Admiralty in London, looking for new sources of supply for its oil-fired battleships, but in other European capitals as...