From our archives:

85 years ago

Sir Malcolm Campbell, in a Blue Bird, had set a new world record of 272 miles per hour at Daytona Beach.

Sir Malcolm had also established a new world record for five kilometres with a speed of 257,295 miles per hour.

This was Sir Malcolm’s sixth world record, an achievement unequalled in motoring sport.

His first record was 150 mph at Pendine in 1925. His second, also at Pendine, was 174 mph in 1927. The next year he averaged 206 mph at Daytona; in 1931, 245; and in 1932, 253 mph.

Under the Mayor of Ripon’s new Food and Fuel Distribution Scheme coal from an 8-ton truck had been distributed to those in need with another truck on order for the following week.

In total, seventy-four lots of logs had been distributed along with the turnips and other vegetables had been provided by Captain Compton, of Newby Hall.

50 years ago

Three television stars had staged a hilarious sketch in St Helen’s Square to launch York’s three-week crime prevention campaign.

Nearly 2,000 “witnesses” saw gangsters Bonnie and Clyde, alias comedians Roy Hudd and Joe Baker, spring from a yellow and black 1930’s car and advance cautiously towards Barclays Bank.

Det Insp Arthur Harrison, head of York CID, said afterwards that the stars had done everything but stick to the script.

“We did not plan any of this Bonnie and Clyde routine or the tap dance. It was a lot funnier than the almost straight bank raid we had thought up.”

South Vietnamese troops had won the battle for the ancient capital of Hue after storming through a gate of the Imperial Palace and in York the number of infectious diseases recorded for the week ending February 17, was 25.

Eighteen cases of scarlet fever and five measles.

20 years ago

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had signed an 11th-hour deal which he had hoped would prevent a US-British military strike against Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who had signed the agreement on behalf of Saddam Hussein, said the deal was a victory for diplomacy.

In Selby, there was the possibility that major anti-pollution equipment at Drax Power Station could be shut down for up to 18 months, if Europe’s largest coal-fired station failed to secure a substantial increase in its authorised emission levels.