Short answers, pulled from the story.
Abraham Gesner registered the word Kerosene as a trademark in 1854. This Nova Scotia geologist created a name that eventually became so ubiquitous it lost its proprietary status and became a generic term for a combustible hydrocarbon liquid.
The Persian scholar Rāzi, also known as Rhazes, first wrote about the process of distilling crude oil into kerosene in the ninth century. He described two methods for producing naft abyad, or white naphtha, using an apparatus called an alembic.
The American whaling fleet collapsed from a peak of 199 ships in 1858 to just 39 ships by 1876 after the invention of kerosene. This transition caused the fleet to disappear as kerosene displaced the ancient practice of burning whale blubber.
Ignacy Łukasiewicz moved to the Gorlice region of Poland in 1854. He had previously experimented with distillation techniques using oil from a local petroleum seep since 1852 and sank several wells across southern Poland over the following decade.
The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has set a recommended exposure limit of 100 mg/m3 over an 8-hour workday. This limit applies to workplace exposure where people can be exposed to kerosene by breathing it in, swallowing it, skin contact, and eye contact.
Grade 1-K kerosene freezes around -40°C. This fuel grade meets specifications for smoke points and freeze points, with commercial aviation fuel standardized at a freezing point that depends on the grade.