100 years ago

Paris, Wednesday: For the fourth day in succession, Paris was visited by a German aeroplane, which circled over the city for 20 minutes between five and six o’clock.

Its evolutions were watched by eager crowds gathered in all open spaces, while machine guns and rifles made vigorous attempts to bring down the insolent intruder.

The aviator was flying at a great height. It was not yet known whether he was hit or whether he dropped bombs.

Paris, Thursday: The last German aeroplane to pay a flying visit to Paris had not succeeded in getting off without having to fight his way out. An eyewitness had just recounted that when the German airman was over the Romainville fort, two French aeroplanes had come up — one on either side of the hostile aircraft.

The German opened fire, to which the Frenchmen replied. The battle in the air lasted for ten minutes.

The German continued to rise all the time, and finally reached such a height that the Frenchmen were unable to follow, and he was utterly lost to sight in a north-easterly direction.


50 years ago

When the Queen cut the ribbon to open the new road bridge over the Firth of Forth on September 4, it was the finishing touch to work that had been going on since 1958.

She opened a suspension bridge that was the largest in the world outside the USA. From bank to bank, the Forth Road Bridge measured more than one-and-a-half miles — as long as the distance between Piccadilly Circus and Victoria Station in London.

This fine achievement in civil engineering was going to mean a great deal to Scotland. The access it gave from south to eastern Scotland was expected to help stimulate the economic development that the area so badly needed.

The bridge was therefore part of the government’s plan to make Scotland an attractive place for industry to be.

The new suspension bridge was about a half-mile upstream from the famous Forth Bridge.

The ancient Queensferry Passage ferry service, which had been plying between the north and south banks of the estuary for more than 800 years, made its last, and very sentimental, trip on the same day that the bridge opened.


25 years ago

Workers at BREL in York celebrated winning a massive £120 million order to build a new generation of coaches for British Rail.

News of the contract, called the Networker, was announced later in the day to the 1,800-strong workforce.

It came as part of a £257 million package to replace pre-war rolling stock in south-east London and north-east Kent.