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12 February 1931: Inauguration of Vatican Radio

Vatican Radio turns 91. From our archives, a “sound picture” of Vatican Radio’s historic inauguration on 12 February 1931 takes us back to that memorable day with the voices of some of its protagonists.

By Veronica Scarisbrick

To mark and to celebrate World Radio Day, Vatican Radio looks back to its own inauguration by Pope Pius XI and Guglielmo Marconi on 12 February 1931.

In this programme presented and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick, you can hear a sound picture of that special day, with the voices of this Pope, of Marconi and his daughter Elettra, as well as the crackly sound of that very first historic broadcast.

By the way, this is one of the programmes we downloaded onto Pope Benedict XVI’s iPod when he came to visit us here at the beginning of his pontificate.

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