BBC highs and lows from coronation to "Socksgate"

(Reuters) - The BBC is expected to announce sweeping job cuts on Thursday, capping a bad year for the broadcaster as it adapts to a new media age. Here are some highs and lows in the corporation's history.

* The British Broadcasting Company, as it was originally called, formed in October 1922 by a group of wireless manufacturers.

It was set up with a commercial mission -- to sell radio sets -- but its general manager John Reith believed it should educate, inform and entertain the nation, free from political interference and commercial pressure.

* The company faced its first major crisis in a General Strike of 1926 when then Chancellor Winston Churchill urged the government to take it over. Reith persuaded then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin this would be against the national interest. In 1927 it became the British Broadcasting Corporation when it was granted its first Royal Charter.

* In 1953, an estimated 22 million TV viewers watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, an event that has been described as the arrival of the television age.

* BBC Television Centre in West London opened in 1960. Colour television broadcasts began on BBC Two in 1967, followed by BBC One in 1969.

* The 1980s was dominated by political rows, including a strike after the BBC Board demanded a programme on extremists in Northern Ireland be pulled following government pressure. The government also complained over the BBC's coverage led by reporter Kate Adie of a U.S. bombing raid on Libya.

* In 2003, the BBC clashed with the government over a radio report which said the government had "sexed up" the case for war with Iraq. The source of the report, British weapons expert David Kelly, later killed himself.

An inquiry led by British law lord Lord Hutton condemned the broadcaster and the corporation's top two executives stood down.