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"From the Microphone to the Listeners" is the name of a new book that's just hit the shelves on the eighty-year history of Czech Radio. While providing a detailed description of the station's role in shaping the country from 1923-2003, the seven-hundred page publication also includes photographs, eye-witness accounts, and the development of radio technology. It also introduces the different departments and important personalities at Czech Radio. Eva Jesutova was one of the main initiators behind the book's production:

A military band played outside the Czech Radio building on Thursday morning, as politicians lined up to lay wreaths at the plaque to those who lost their lives defending the station in August 1968. It's thirty-five years to the day since the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, a day of reflection and remembrance for the Czech people. Czechoslovak Radio played a particularly important role in the hours that followed the invasion, as besieged reporters broadcast desperate appeals for help to the outside world.

This week's Mailbox is dedicated to our beloved colleague Olga Szantova, who passed away on August 8, 2003, after fighting a long and hard battle with cancer. The Radio Prague team would like to thank all listeners and friends for the numerous words of sympathy and condolences that were sent to us.

On Friday night our much-loved colleague from Radio Prague, Olga Szantova, died at the age of 71: the end of a long battle with cancer and a life that was quite exceptional. She will be hugely missed not just by colleagues but also by many thousands of listeners, who had grown to know her over a radio career that spanned over 40 years. David Vaughan remembers.

On Thursday Czech Radio became part of the international multimedia project Tesla Planetary Gathering. The project was initiated by Serbian Radio Belgrade, and it aims to create a network of radio stations connecting the towns where Nikola Tesla lived and worked. A newly-installed bust of Tesla, unveiled yesterday in the Czech Radio building, is a memorial to the scientist who established the basic concept of radio technology, a genius who spent a significant part of his scientific and intellectual life at the Technical University in Prague. Mirna

One of the thousands of people who have worked at the station over the years is the UK-based writer and broadcaster Benjamin Kuras. Not only did Mr Kuras work at Czech Radio - he was actually on the staff here at Radio Prague. However, his time here was cut short when he - like many of his generation - left Czechoslovakia in the wake of the Soviet-led invasion of August, 1968. On a recent visit to our studio, Benjamin Kuras told Ian Willoughby exactly how long he had been at Radio Prague.

In 1930, just seven years after radio broadcasting was established in the former Czechoslovakia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs came up with the idea of creating a shortwave service which would present the country abroad. Five years later workmen began assembling shortwave transmitters and on August 31st, 1936 the station first went on the air with a speech in English by the technical director of Czechoslovak Radio. This day marked the birth of international broadcasting in Czechoslovakia.

After 1989, Czechoslovak Radio, just like almost every other institution in this country had to find a new identity. Almost overnight, it ceased to be the voice of the state and changed into a broadcaster whose goal was to provide unbiased information, education and entertainment to listeners in an increasingly competitive environment. In 1991, Czechoslovak Radio became a public-service institution, independent of the state and funded by subscription fees. 1993 was another milestone for the broadcaster - the split of Czechoslovakia gave birth to

In this week's edition of our special on the history of Czech Radio, marking the station's 80th anniversary, Jan Velinger looks at the role of the station during the fall of Communism in 1989.

In this week's edition of our weekly special on the history of Czech Radio - marking the station's 80th anniversary - Martin Hrobsky looks at the role radio played during the Prague Spring. It was 1968 in Czechoslovakia and optimism was in the air: students, workers, and intellectuals alike were calling for change in a political and economic system that was no longer meeting the needs of the people. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia knew this, and once a number of innocent reforms were carried out, the winds of change could not be