Day 223

1956 was a strange year. A strange year indeed. It was a leap year as well, so there was a little bit more of it than most years. It was the year Elvis Presley first entered the US music charts. It was the year Marilyn Monroe changed her name to Marilyn Monroe. It was the year that birthed the videotape. It was also the year that Britain was hit by petrol rationing.

At the time, most of Britain's oil would arrive having been transported via the Suez Canal in Egypt. That system seemed to be working out well for everybody until the President of Egypt locked down the canal in 1956 - a reaction to bad blood being stirred there between several nations looking to control the area (ourselves included).
This lead almost immediately to a 'crisis' back in the UK; motorists began panic-buying petrol, filling tanks, buckets, pockets, their own cheeks – anything that could be used as an effective petroleum conveyance – and stockpiling it at home. The panic quickly depleted the country's petrol supply which caused the garages to close and the roads to empty long before official rationing measures were put in place by the government.

It was one big petroly mess.

Oddly, record of this desperate situation is not limited to the BBC News website archives. You can also find reference to the 1956 driver's blackout on obscure T-shirts all the way over in China.

Unless I'm mistaken, Day 223's THREEHUNDREDANDSIXTEEFIVE challenge tee is the last of my wife's souvenir purchases from her travels in the Far East last year, and being as its design features only two prints – one a dark green automobile and the other a pink '1956' – I am relatively certain this story is what they are referencing. Further research indicates that the reason President Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal was because Britain withdrew funding it planned to invest in building the Aswan Dam. The reason Britain withdrew funding it planned to invest in building the Aswan Dam was because we learnt that Nasser was getting chummy with China, who at the time, we didn't like.
In summary, Britain didn't like China, Egypt liked China, Britain therefore didn't like Egypt, Britain took Egypt's dam away, Egypt took Britain's petrol away, and now China is teasing Britain by spreading rumours of the whole thing on T-shirts 50 years later.

For a T-shirt so simple, it's pretty complicated.