Timeline of BBC history

The BBC was formed by a team of wireless manufacturers

Daily broadcasting began in the Strand

John Reith became General Manager of the BBC

First edition of the Radio Times

BBC established by Royal Charter as the British Broadcasting Corporation Sir John Reith became the first Director General

John Logie Baird broadcast some of his first TV broadcasts from the studios near Covent Garden, London It was black and white, flickered and made up of 30 lines definition

Broadcasting House opens

King George V becomes the first monarch to broadcast on the radio

The Type 'A' microphone was invented

The BBC becomes the first broadcaster to provide HD content

The first broadcast outside: The cameras were taken to King George VI's coronation

The first foreign broadcaster was employed from an Egyptian radio show, speaking Arabic

Desert Island Discs were presented

Woman's Hour - First radio programme for women presented

Children’s television service was created after the war - one of its earliest successes was Muffin The Mule.

News was first broadcast on TV

The first Olympics games (London) was televised

Weather broadcasts were revived after the war

The Archers' (the world's longest running soap opera) trial began

An experiment to televise live debate from the Commons was considered successful, but the public could not see it

Vision Electronic Recording Apparatus –V.E.R.A., has been billed as the first video tape recorder

Queen Elizabeth's coronation was the first to be broadcast live

The Radiophonic Workshop was established

Blue Peter began

The television centre opened

The first and most successful sci-fi show, Doctor Who, was aired

The Forsyte Saga evolutionised costume drama

'Our World' - Pictures by satellite had been received by the BBC

BBC TWO - the first full colour TV service in Europe

Radio 1 was aired for the first time

The Open University goes on air

Newsround - The first children’s TV news bulletin

The Family - the first ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary

Designed by BBC engineers to provide subtitles for the deaf, CEEFAX (derived from 'see-facts') was the first teletext service in the world.

Life On Earth - natural history programmes had been seen before, until David Attenborough started this series that the genre really took off

The Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana - The wedding had an estimated global TV audience of 750 million

The BBC Microcomputer was launched

Breakfast Time – the UK’s breakfast TV service was first broadcast

EastEnders - the BBC's most watched programme ever was first aired

Live Aid was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for Ethiopia famine relief.

DAB was promoted heavily by the BBC, and as a result was taken up more rapidly in the UK than anywhere else in Europe

The BBC News 24 Channel was the second 24 hour news service in Britain - the first for the BBC

bbc.co.uk was launched

The first BBC digital TV channel - this then later became BBC Three

Come Dancing returns as 'Strictly' - The original Come Dancing ran between 1949 and 1998, but only reached cult status when it was re-launched as Strictly Come Dancing in 2004

The first BBC sci-fi show, Doctor Who, was relaunched into a modern era of sci-fi

BBC iPlayer - streaming technology had developed sufficiently to offer whole TV programmes online

BBC Pacific Quay – the first all-digital BBC centre was opened

BBC Arabic and BBC Persian Television were created

Red Button - Video on demand, the ability to answer quiz questions, and background programme information are just some of the features now on offer

Super Hi-Vision (SHV) pictures were first broadcast from London to Tokyo from BBC studios

The 125th anniversary of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships was marked with the UK’s first live 3D coverage of the men's and ladies' singles finals

London 2012 Olympics - The BBC delivered its most successful online event ever, which attracted a record-breaking 55m global browsers to BBC Sport online

Available across multiple platforms, BBC iPlayer Radio was launched

BBC Connected Red Button is a new service from the BBC that seamlessly brings TV, radio and online together