This Day in History (1965): Abqaiq Drilling Does It Again

From the Dec. 29, 1965, edition of the Sun and Flare

Drilling records continue to fall in the Abqaiq Drilling Division, as November's record drilling time for Shedgum Well-32 of 11.8 days was bettered three times in December in land wells, and a new offshore drilling record was established.

Shedgum Well-37, drilled by the National 80-2 rig, was spudded on Nov. 23, and the rig released on Dec. 4 after drilling to a depth of 7,028 feet in 11.2 days

Shedgum Well-33, spudded on Dec. 18 and rig released on Dec. 27, reached a depth of 6,601 feet in 9.4 days, but by that time, a better record has been established at Shedgum Well-31, which between Dec. 6 and Dec. 15, was drilled to a depth of 6,584 feet in 9.2 days, the standing record to date for land wells.

All three wells were drilled by the same crew.

Also on this date:

2013 — Seven-time F1 champion Michael Schumacher suffers a massive head injury skiing in the French Alps

2003 — The last-known speaker of Akkala Sami, which was native in some inland parts of Russia, dies, rendering the language extinct

1998 — Some of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologize for the genocide inflicted in Cambodia, which claimed more than 1 million lives

1989 — Vaclav Havel is elected the first post-communist president of Czechoslovakia

1937 — The Irish Free State is replaced by a new state called Ireland with the adoption of a new constitution

1930 — Sir Muhammad Iqbal's presidential address in Allahabad introduces the two-nation theory and outlines a vision for the creation of Pakistan

1913 — Cecil B. DeMille begins filming The Squaw Man, Hollywood's first feature film

1890 — On the Pine Ridge Reservation, more than 300 Lakota are killed by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry Regiment in the Wounded Knee Massacre

1845 — The United States annexes the Republic of Texas

1170 — Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, is assassinated by followers of King Henry II