The first internal combustion engine was developed in 1680 by the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, who experimented with gunpowder as a fuel. The engine was far too dangerous to be practical, but the idea of an internal combustion engine continued to fascinate inventors.

Huygens's use of gunpowder as fuel for internal combustion engines gave way to the use of coal gas, which was extensively used to light city streets. Frenchman Jean-Joseph Étienne Lenoir is usually credited with developing in 1859 the world's first practical internal combustion engine, which was fueled by coal gas. Although Lenoir's two-cycle engine wasted fuel, his design was made considerably more efficient by the development of the four-stroke engine, an accomplishment generally credited to the German inventor Nikolaus August Otto.

Also in 1859 Edwin Drake bore through 69 feet (21 m) of rock and struck oil in Pennsylvania. It was an event that changed forever how...