This story doesn't really explain what killed lard in Europe. They don't sell Crisco or any other kind of shortening here in Norway, for example. Norwegian recipes often call for butter, but rarely for lard. Few things are ever deep fried and in pie crusts, we use butter, not lard. The closest thing you can find to shortening in a Norwegian supermarket is coco fat. The only thing I know of that was traditionally cooked in lard is donuts, which are literally named lardrings (smultringer) in Norwegian.

What happened in Norway is that butter was rationed because of WWII and they introduced margarine (another product of hydrogenation) as a substitute, and after the war, it was promoted as a healthier alternative to butter.

Lard must've been around, especially in other parts of Europe than Norway, but I doubt these domestic American events killed it.

I often see Americans attempting to explain why things happen in their country by pointing to domestic events, with said events failing to account for an identical thing happening all over the world.