A closer look
When OPEC abruptly turned off the geopolitical taps in 1973, the US government decided the most logical way to distribute gasoline was a nationwide game of bingo based on your car's bumper. Odd-even rationing dictated that you could only buy fuel on specific days depending on the last digit of your license plate. This brilliant bureaucratic maneuver didn't actually conjure more oil, but it did create apocalyptic, hours-long queues of furious suburbanites fighting over the last drops of unleaded.
