Felipe Caldern becomes President of Mexico during a midnight ceremony in Mexico City. A conservative, he had been warned of the threat of disruption from opposition politicians to his inauguration ceremony. Members of the left-wing PRD have said that he won the election by fraud. He studied law Mexico City and did postgraduate studies in economics at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. In 2000 he completed a master's degree in public administration at Harvard University.

The continuous moving assembly line introduced by Ford in his Highland Park, Detroit, Michigan, factory was capable of delivering a car every 2-min 38-sec. By the summer of 1913, three subassemblies (magnetos, motors, and transmissions) were assembled on moving lines using conveyor belts. Because these moving lines produced subassemblies faster than the main production line could take them, a moving chassis line was added to replace his "push" assembly line. The method was so successful that the Ford Motor Co. became the world's largest car manufacturer. Business men the world over flocked to Detroit to glean the secrets of the moving assembly line.