Gasoline is a mixture of liquid hydrocarbons distilled from crude oil which is used as a fuel for internal-combustion engines. Gasoline was invented after discovery of crude oil in the late 1850s when various refining processes were developed to make the oil useable. Early types of gasoline were produced as a byproduct of the process used to make kerosene fuel for oil lamps. Since this was before the development of the internal combustion engine, much of this early gasoline was discarded because no one had any use for it.

When the automobile was invented a new market was created for gasoline. At first, automobile engines used "straight-run" gasoline--the natural gasoline fraction produced by distilling crude oil. But this process yielded less than fifteen barrels of gasoline from each barrel of oil. After the mass production of cars began in 1908, oil refiners could not keep up with the growing...