100 years ago, Hitler, Tito, Stalin, Trotsky, and Freud all lived in Vienna Austria. One year later Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.
“…Vienna in 1913 was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which consisted of 15 nations and well over 50 million inhabitants….'Officers in the Austro-Hungarian Army had to be able to give commands in 11 languages besides German'… this unique melange created its own cultural phenomenon, the Viennese coffee-house. Legend has its genesis in sacks of coffee left by the Ottoman army following the failed Turkish siege of 1683….Trotsky and Hitler frequented Cafe Central…Though the city was, and remains, synonymous with music, lavish balls and the waltz, its dark side was especially bleak. Vast numbers of its citizens lived in slums and 1913 saw nearly 1,500 Viennese take their own lives….”
And in coffee news, we owe part of its popularity in the West to the Catholic Church. BTW, the Vienna coffee drink is called a, melange.
“…At first, coffee had been viewed with suspicion in Europe as a Muslim drink, but around 1600 Pope Clement VIII is reported to have so enjoyed a cup that he said it would be wrong to permit Muslims to monopolise it, and that it should therefore be baptised….” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22190802