diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 77f5f19..c32cfb5 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
 www/bower_components
 !www/bower_components/.gitkeep
 
+# Ignore the SQLite database
+violence.db
+
 # Byte-compiled / optimized / DLL files
 __pycache__/
 *.py[cod]
diff --git a/get_incidents.py b/get_incidents.py
index f47936e..372669d 100644
--- a/get_incidents.py
+++ b/get_incidents.py
@@ -4,21 +4,36 @@
 
 import sqlite3
 import hashlib
+import time
 from scraper.scraper import Scraper
 
-encoding = 'utf-8'
+encoding = 'UTF-8'
 
+# helper function for benchmarking
+current_milli_time = lambda: int(round(time.time() * 1000))
+
+#
+# this is where the logic starts:
+#
+
+print('Start crawling…')
+start_time = current_milli_time()
 scraper = Scraper()
 articles = scraper.scrape()
+time_taken = current_milli_time() - start_time
+print('Found {} articles in {} ms'.format(len(articles), time_taken))
 
 conn = sqlite3.connect('violence.db')
 c = conn.cursor()
 
 # setup database schema
+c.execute('PRAGMA encoding = "{}"'.format(encoding))
+
 c.execute('''
     CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS incidents (
         incident_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
         date TEXT,
+        month_only INTEGER,
         place TEXT,
         additional_place TEXT,
         description TEXT,
@@ -40,26 +55,33 @@ c.execute('''
 select_query = 'SELECT * FROM incidents WHERE hash=?'
 insert_query = '''
     INSERT INTO incidents (
-        date, place, additional_place, description, hash
-    ) VALUES (?)
+        date, month_only, place, additional_place, description, hash
+    ) VALUES (?,?,?,?,?,?)
 '''
+
+print('Starting database work')
 for article in articles:
     # build a hash so we can more easily find out if we have an article already
-    h = h.sha256()
-    h.update(article.date.encode(encoding))
-    h.update(article.place.encode(encoding))
-    h.update(article.additional_place.encode(encoding))
-    h.update(article.description.encode(encoding))
+    h = hashlib.sha256()
+    h.update(str(article['date']).encode(encoding))
+    h.update(article['place'].encode(encoding))
+    h.update((article['additional_place'] or '').encode(encoding))
+    h.update(article['description'].encode(encoding))
     digest = h.digest()
 
-    c.execute(select_query)
+    c.execute(select_query, (digest,))
 
+    # now if it's not in the database insert it
     if (not c.fetchone()):
         article_tuple = (
-            article.date,
-            article.place,
-            article.additional_place,
-            article.description,
+            article['date'],
+            article['month_only'],
+            article['place'],
+            article['additional_place'],
+            article['description'],
             digest
         )
         c.execute(insert_query, article_tuple)
+
+final_time = current_milli_time() - start_time
+print('All done in {} ms'.format(final_time))
diff --git a/scraper/scraper.py b/scraper/scraper.py
index 2a2da71..24485b7 100644
--- a/scraper/scraper.py
+++ b/scraper/scraper.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
 from urllib import parse, request
 from datetime import date
+import re
 
 class Scraper():
 
@@ -10,6 +11,11 @@ class Scraper():
         self.start = request.urlopen(index)
         self.base_url = parsed_url.scheme + "://" + parsed_url.netloc
 
+        # dates are a bit dificult; usually they're formatted like YYYY-MM-DD,
+        # followed by a space character, but sometimes the day is missing or it's
+        # followed by another character…
+        self.date_matcher = re.compile('^(\d{4})-(\d{,2})(-(\d{,2}))?')
+
     def get_next_page(self, document):
         nav_elem = document.select('.nav')[1]
 
@@ -25,10 +31,17 @@ class Scraper():
         articles = []
 
         for table in article_tables:
-            # headlines are always YYYY-MM-DD Berlin-DISTRICT (+ sometimes additional info)
+            # headlines are always YYYY-MM-DD? Berlin-DISTRICT (+ sometimes additional info)
             headline = table.select('tr:first-child')[0].get_text()
 
-            year, month, day = headline[:headline.find(' ')].strip().split('-')
+            date_match = self.date_matcher.match(headline.strip())
+
+            try:
+                year, month, day = date_match.group(1,2,4)
+            except:
+                print('Failed for headline ' + headline)
+                raise
+
             places = headline[headline.find(' ') + 1:]
 
             if places.find(' ') == -1:
@@ -41,8 +54,9 @@ class Scraper():
             text = table.select('tr')[2].select('td')[1].get_text()
 
             article = {
-                'date': date.strip(),
-                'place': district,
+                'date': date(int(year), int(month), int(day) if day else 1),
+                'month_only': day is None,
+                'place': district.strip(),
                 'additional_place': additional,
                 'description': text.strip()
             }
@@ -67,11 +81,11 @@ class Scraper():
         articles = []
 
         for url in overview_urls:
-            currentDoc = BeautifulSoup(request.urlopen(url))
+            current_doc = BeautifulSoup(request.urlopen(url))
 
-            while currentDoc:
-                new_articles = self.get_articles_on_page(currentDoc)
+            while current_doc:
+                new_articles = self.get_articles_on_page(current_doc)
                 articles.extend(new_articles)
-                currentDoc = self.get_next_page(currentDoc)
+                current_doc = self.get_next_page(current_doc)
 
         return articles