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This weekend we celebrate what is for all of us here at Vinohradská 12 a rather important birthday. May 18 was the day back in 1923 when Czechoslovakia began its first regular radio broadcasts. To mark the event we shall be bringing you a special programme on Sunday, looking back to those pioneering days. Here is a quick foretaste of what we have in store.

This year, Český Rozhlas or Czech Radio is celebrating its 85th anniversary. A number of special commemorative events and broadcasts are being planned for the coming months. As an institution, Czech Radio has played its part in, and survived, two revolutions, as many major uprisings, and a world war. But could one of its biggest tests be, quite simply, a change in times and consumers’ tastes? As we are bombarded with information from an ever increasing number of sources, is there still a place for good old radio in the modern world?

On May 5 1945, Czech Radio or Český Rozhlas formally turned against the Nazi German government occupying the country and called on protesters to openly oppose Nazi rule. Today marks the 63rd anniversary of this incident, which ultimately led to the liberation of the Czech lands from Nazi rule.

In last week’s From the Archives, we heard how German troops marched into Prague on March 15 1939. The next day, Edvard Benes, who had resigned as Czechoslovakia’s president in the wake of the Munich Agreement, and was in exile in London, told Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain that from now on, he would be leading the resistance against the German occupation. Five months later, war broke out and at the end of 1939 the BBC began its broadcasts in Czech.

Barbora Tachecí has been fired as the director of Czech Radio’s biggest station, Radiožurnál. Ms Tachecí had come in for some criticism for changes introduced to the station at the beginning of this year; hundreds of listeners sent complaints to both Czech Radio and the council which oversees it. No figures are currently available regarding the number of listeners in the period since Ms Tachecí’s changes were implemented.

In recent weeks, I’ve tried to capture something of the tense atmosphere of the time leading up to the Munich Agreement of September 30 1938, when the British and French Prime Ministers Chamberlain and Daladier allowed Hitler to carve up Czechoslovakia and march unopposed into the Sudetenland. The agreement left the country as a fragment of its former self; not only Germany, but also Hungary and Poland, claimed large chunks of Czechoslovakia’s borderlands. Here is how Radio Prague reported on the final border agreement, reached some weeks after

Virtual worlds existing in the realm of cyberspace are very much in the focus at the moment. They are now being put to all manners of serious uses and are also encountering various real-world teething problems. Whole companies have established their virtual branches in cyberspace. Following the example of other media organisations Czech Radio recently launched its virtual presence in the internet-base virtual world Second Life, as an additional project to its airwave and online activities.

We quite often hear it said that in the run-up to World War Two, no-one quite realized the scale of the threat that Nazi Germany posed in Europe. When Hitler set his eyes on Czechoslovakia, there were plenty of politicians in Western Europe who really seemed to believe him, when he said that the Czech borderlands, the so-called Sudetenland, were his “last territorial claim”. But Czech Radio’s archives show clearly that here in Prague there were also plenty of people who were only too aware of the worldwide menace that Hitler posed. As Britain and

One of the most dramatic - but least known - events in Czechoslovak Radio’s history dates back to September 21 1938. This was the day that the government announced that it was willing to succumb to German pressure, and would give up large areas of the country’s borderlands to Nazi Germany. By this time it was clear that Britain and France would not be willing to fight for Czechoslovakia’s territorial integrity, and that to say no would mean invasion. The announcement sent a shockwave through Czech society, and immediately thousands took to the

This week in Mailbox: An unusual reception report from Montana, the results of Radio Prague’s Christmas competition. Listeners quoted: Christoph Preutenborbeck, Mark Schiefelbein, Brian Kendall, Jin Ok Um, Qiu Lei, Praseetha Kizhakedath, Oscar Machuki, Krista Warstler.