100 years ago

A dispatch from the front described the hilarity of Russian soldiers at proclamations dropped from German aeroplanes.

One of the latest informed the Russians that God had lowered their colours, that their cause was lost, and that a new and most powerful and dangerous enemy had appeared against the Czar, Islam numbering 400 millions – twice as much as Russia.
 

50 years ago

Plans for a new building to replace the existing temporary branch library at Acomb had been approved by the Library and Friendly Relations Committee.

They would put out to tender soon and it was hoped the building would be completed in 1966. A total of £20,000 had been set aside for it in the capital estimates. The proposed new library would be built on land at the rear of the current building, in Front Street.

It would be a single-storey structure comprising a large open plan lending library, a small reference library and study room, work rooms and serviced offices.

On one side, the browsing area of the lending library would look out onto a garden courtyard with an ornamental pool. The approach to the building would be across a forecourt and there would be plenty off-the-road parking space. It was planned to provide sufficient shelves in the adult department for 10,000 books.

Accommodated in temporary, prefabricated hutments, the existing branch library at Acomb had first opened in 1950, although Acomb library had originated from a single bookshelf housed at the village school.
 

25 years ago

Adams Hydraulics – one of York's oldest firms – had been acquired by a development company. But the jobs of 80 staff and executives had been safeguarded in what would be a move to a modern site on the outskirts of the city.

The new owners were Foss Development Corporation, a joint-venture company with plans for a multi-million pound office complex on the extensive Peasholme Green site.

Adams hydraulics, specialists in designing and manufacturing equipment for the water industry, was to be relocated on a new site in Greater York, probably at Clifton.

The firm was to be moved from the centre of York to a new factory, with modern facilities and much better communications.