1. We’re picking up our narrative in 1973, while Nixon was still president. Worth saying that, when he wasn’t breaking the law, Nixon was actually a pretty great president, and got an enormous amount done in his time in office. We’ll see a little of that in this lesson. 2. In October of 1973 Egypt and Syria sneak-attacked Israel and almost defeated it. America, Israel’s #1 ally, rushed supplies across the ocean. The regional Muslim countries were really mad at us, almost like we were “cheating”, helping Israel win when they really should’a lost. 3. OPEC, a cartel of oil-producing states, decided to punish America and its allies for helping Israel, using what they thought was their most-powerful weapon, oil. Before the war was even over they started cutting oil exports overall and specifically embargoing (not selling) to us.