January 10th 1870, Ohio, United States of America – Six business men submit a document of incorporation to the registry office in Cleveland, Ohio. The group comprises a chemist, an owner of general stores, a distiller, a failed salt miner and two sons of an itinerant snake oil salesman and con artist. Doesn’t sound like the type of group that will make history, does it? Now, factor in that said conman’s name was William Avery Rockefeller, Sr, the two sons in question are John Davison Rockefeller and William Avery Rockefeller and the company is to be called Standard Oil, and maybe we can rethink that "making history" judgement?
In the 41 years that the company traded before its dismemberment under the Sherman Antitrust Act, it had the monopoly on the production, transport, refining and marketing of oil based products in the United States. Its separation into 33 smaller companies would make John D. Rockefeller the richest man of all time, and the Standard Oil legacy lives on across the supermajors, that still dominate the industry to this day.
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