August 1913 - The Year Before The Storm

Ford assembly line in 1913

Anecdotes of the month include:

• Aug 3:
  Artist suffocates inside a pile of sand at Berlin Jungfernheide.
  His art consisted of being buried alive for up to five minutes at a time, but today, his director got carried away by a conversation, and forgot to excavate him until ten minutes had already passed.
  
• Aug. 16:
  For the first time ever, an assembly line is put together at the Ford automobile factory, in Detroit.
  
• Aug 22:
  The Austro-Hungarian army wants to strengthen itself, and so starts a search for deserters from military service. The police publish a missing persons notice:
  'Hietler, Adolf,
  last known residence in a men's hostel in Meldemannstrasse, Vienna,
  current residence unknown,
  enquiries under way.'
  
• Aug 28:
  Celebrations of Goethe's birthday.
  Emperor Franz Joseph goes hunting and shoots a goat.

Source:

1913, The year before the storm, by Florian Illies