History of BP

choi

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Ishaan Tharoor, A Brief History of BP. Time, June 2, 2010.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1993361,00.html

My comment:
(a) The print version is more concise.
(b) The second and last monarch of the House of Pahlavi of the Iranian monarchy, Mohammad-Rezā Pahlavi (1919-1980) reigned from 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979. His father is Rezā Khan, who adopted the surname Pahlavi and whose reign was from 1925 to 1941.
(c) Iran
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran

(i) The name Iran is a cognate of Aryan, and means "Land of the Aryans." Since the Sassanian era [224-651 AD] the country has been known to its own people as Iran; however, to the western world, the official name of Iran from the 6th century BCE until 1935 was Persia or similar foreign language translations (La Perse, Persien, Perzie, etc.). In that year, Reza Shah asked the international community to call the country by the name "Iran."

(ii) In spite of The Great Game Iran managed to maintain her sovereignty and was never colonized, unlike neighbouring states in the region.

(iii) Operation Ajax, the 1953 coup was the first time the US had openly overthrown an elected, civil government. The next year (1954), the company was renamed from Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) to British Petroleum.

Ajax is a hero in Greek mythology.

(Incidentally Anglo-Persian Oil Company was foounded in 1909.)

(4) Today Financial Times (London) emphasizes that BP no longer stands for "British Petroleum"--since 1998 when British Petroleum merged with Amoco (short for American Oil Company).

(5) As for the origin of "Persia," see Fars Province
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fars_Province
("Fars is the original homeland of the Persian people. The native name of the Persian language is Fârsi or Pârsi. Persia and Persian both derive from the Hellenized form of the root word Pârs. * * * Fars is the Arabized version of Pârs, as Arabic has no [p] phoneme.")

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