125 years of the Czech Academies of Sciences (and the Arts)

While the origin of the Czech Academy of Sciences was in 1770, its most important predecessor was established 125 years ago, in 1890. This significant jubilee is being commemorated throughout 2015 by the CAS with several ceremonial events, exhibitions and lectures. The first two were a ceremonial session of the Czech Senate and festive soirée afterward at the Convent of St Agnes of Bohemia in Prague. Both events took place January 23, the day in 1890 the Emperor Franz Josef’s Czech Academy for Sciences, Literature and the Arts was established. The founder was Josef Hlávka, a Czech patron of science and the arts, who relied on the scientific work performed in the 1860s by Jan Evangelista Purkyně.