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Description:

AP U.S. History: Urban Society in 19th Century Drill 1, Problem 1. In this AP U.S. History question figure out how the cutoff of oil in America may have been avoided in the 1970's.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:03

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the oil crisis,

00:07

the bane of teenage skincare. [ screaming ]

00:10

All right, well, give this excerpt a read.

00:12

[ mumbles ]

00:15

And the question: The cutoff of oil might have been avoided

00:18

if the United States had... what?

00:20

And here are your potential answers.

00:23

[ screaming ]

00:27

Well, this cutoff of oil -

00:28

it was definitely trendy, but not in a good way.

00:31

In 1973, OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum

00:34

Exporting Countries,

00:36

imposed an oil embargo against the United States,

00:39

raising oil prices almost fourfold.

00:41

Talk about a gas problem. Let's look to the answers

00:44

and find out what might have caused this upset.

00:47

Well, could the cutoff of oil have been avoided if the U.S. had

00:51

A - not bombed Laos and Cambodia and had

00:54

pulled out of Vietnam?

00:56

Well, people might have been frustrated that we were

00:57

in Southeast Asia at all, but Vietnam didn't export

01:00

oil, was not a member of OPEC, and didn't have any sway

01:04

on the group's decisions. So this probably had nothing to do with it.

01:06

Would the cutoff have been avoided if the U.S. B -

01:09

supported the Iranian revolution instead of Mohammed Pahlavi?

01:12

Well, look at the excerpt again. See the year? It's 1973.

01:16

The Iranian revolution was in 1979.

01:19

Now there was another oil crisis after the Iranians overthrew the shah,

01:22

but that rebellion is a little behind our cur. So it's not B either.

01:25

Could the U.S. have avoided the oil embargo if it had

01:28

D - established closer ties

01:30

with Egyptian president Nasser after the Suez Canal crisis?

01:34

Whoa, hold up. Nasser was president of Egypt from 1956

01:38

to 1970. In 1973, Anwar Sadat

01:42

was leading the country. And he actually initiated a break

01:44

away from Soviet influence in Egypt.

01:47

Which means that the cutoff of oil might have been avoided

01:49

if the United States had C - remained neutral during the Yom Kippur War

01:52

between Israel, Syria, and Egypt.

01:54

And there we go. In October of 1973, Syria and Egypt

01:57

launched a surprise attack on Israel, one of America's

02:00

staunchest allies in the region. So you better believe we were

02:02

caught in the middle of, uh, the Middle East.

02:04

When the U.S. supported Israel in the conflict, OPEC

02:07

retaliated by limiting the oil supply, driving prices

02:10

through the roof. That makes C the right answer.

02:12

There's a whole other story we can tell about putting the cartel

02:15

before the horse, but we just won't go there.

02:18

[ horse neighs ]

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