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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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BP
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(British Petroleum) Founded in 1909, as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, by *Burmah Oil in partnership with William Knox d'Arcy – a solicitor turned prospector who had discovered oil in southern Iran the previous year. His find was the beginning of the Middle East oil industry. In 1914 the British government took a majority shareholding to ensure a supply of fuel to the navy (the government share was progressively sold from 1979). In the 1930s the company extended its activities to Iraq and Kuwait, but in 1951 its wells and refineries in Iran were nationalized. It then reorganized as British Petroleum (from 1954), and developed more widely based oil interests – first in Alaska, where it discovered the USA's largest oil field in 1969 (an event which led to BP taking over Standard Oil in 1987), and then in the North Sea.
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