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In October 1973, war in the Middle East triggered an energy crisis that Americans could see with their own eyes.
After Arab oil producers imposed an embargo on the United States, gasoline supplies tightened and prices soared. Drivers waited in lines that stretched around the block, wondering whether the station would run dry before they reached the pump.
Inflation was no longer an abstract number buried in a government report.
It was posted on gas station signs. It was eating into family budgets. And it was sitting in a line of cars that barely moved.
