ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

1973 oil crisis

Imagine you have a toy that you love to play with - maybe it's a car or a Barbie doll. Now imagine that someone takes away the batteries, and you can't play with it anymore. That's kind of what happened in the 1973 oil crisis.

At that time, lots of countries around the world needed oil to power their cars, buses, and machines. They usually got that oil from a few big countries, like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela. But in 1973, those countries got upset with some other countries, and they decided to stop selling oil to them. That meant those other countries didn't have enough oil to keep their cars, buses, and machines running.

This caused big problems in those countries. People had to wait in long lines at gas stations to get just a little bit of gas for their cars. Sometimes they had to wait for hours, and then they might not even get any gas at all. That made it hard for them to go to work, go to school, or even go to the store and buy food.

The oil crisis also made things more expensive. When there isn't enough of something (like oil), people are willing to pay more for it. So the price of gas went up a lot, and that made everything else more expensive too - like food, clothes, and toys. That meant people had to spend more money just to survive.

The 1973 oil crisis had a big impact on the world. It showed how important oil was for many countries, and how vulnerable they were if they didn't have enough of it. It also made people think more about using different types of energy that didn't rely on oil, like wind or solar power.