Brief history of oil (petroleum)

Intro
I say too much. Maybe, rather, I say so much. I become deeply interested in topics others haven't or it takes me a lot of work (writing or talking) to work through some topics that others 'just get'. Maybe because I'm still influenced my earliest years as a 'real' adult' were
in a world with out the Internet. And I was so hungry for the information it promised. I knew it's promise and maybe was one of the first peoples to know about it and to have to wait for it. I had been dying for answers, and then had to work through the primitive offerings of the Internet, and just loved the experience when all you had to do was figure out the right search terms. Then WHAM! The info is right there with you. And it became so fun to 'read between the lines' - to see what was included in the standard literature and what was being excluded. (Then the fun of figuring out why the mainstream didn't bother with the other side of the story. Conspiracy? Laziness?  (just repeat what you've already heard)? Obscurity? And I have to put out here that topics with religious overtones can fall into the conspiracy category.

(My opinion - while Wikipedia provides an amazing amount of information ---- some topics have become "safe" from continuous major edits only by covering parts of a history - and so has only provided me part of the puzzle.)