It includes the third-largest bronze rider statue in the world,[1] of Jan Žižka, who defeated the Catholic forces led by King Sigismund in 1420 at the Battle of Vítkov Hill.

The first written mention of Vítkov is from the 14th century, during the reign of Charles IV, who had vineyards planted on the hills around Prague.

In April and May 1420, Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor led a Pope-sanctioned crusade army against the Hussite movement.

The decisive Battle of Vítkov Hill took place on 14 July 1420, when the Hussite forces defeated the crusader army.

In the second half of the 19th century, Czech nationalism was displayed in historical places, among them Žižkov and Vítkov Hill.

In 1877, the town of Královské Vinohrady I was renamed Žižkov, as Jan Žižka, leader of the radical Hussites, was perceived as a symbol of the fight for Czech interests.

The Association held national celebrations in Žižkov (for instance in 1884) and in 1910 a memorial tablet was unveiled at the top of the hill.

The objective of the Resistance Monument as an institution was to build a structure which would inspire celebration and reverence as well as historical research activities, such as including an archive, library and museum.

The construction of the National Liberation Monument commenced in 1928 when the corner stone was laid on the top of Vítkov Hill in the presence of President T. G. Masaryk to mark the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the creation of Czechoslovakia.

When World War II began, the lower buildings of the museum, now the Institute of Military History, were seized by the Germans.

The administration of the Monument took advantage of this period to secretly remove everything valuable, such as metals for casting sculptures, and works of art.

The monument was eventually commissioned in 1931 from sculptor Bohumil Kafka, a professor at Prague's Academy of Visual Arts, outside the tender.

It took Kafka ten years to complete the sculpture, and an advisory board of nine people was established to supervise his work, consisting of specialists, historians and hippologists.

Experts in historical armament provided information not only on the rider's clothing style, but also many other details, such as the design of the foot frame.

At the beginning of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in 1939, the Tomb became a place where people expressed their symbolic resistance against Nazi rule.

On Sunday 9 October 1949, when celebrations of the 5th anniversary of the Battle of the Dukla Pass were at their peak, the remains were moved to the Liberation Monument.

Vigorous oppression of the legionary tradition commenced in 1950, and following a decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the Monument of Liberation was converted into a proletariat pantheon, thus changing its ideological function.

The Minister of National Defence and Gottwald's son-in-law Alexej Čepička was in charge of preparatory works for the conversion.

After Gottwald's body was cremated in 1962, the funerary urn containing his ashes was returned to the National Monument and placed in the sarcophagus.

Other prominent members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia whose urns were displayed alongside Gottwald's in the National Monument were Gusta Fučiková, Marta Gottwaldová, Josef Haken, Jan Harus, Josef Hlavicka, Čeněk Hruška, Jiří František Chaloupecký, Antonín Janoušek, Josef Juran, Augustin Kliment, Václav Kopecký, Marie Majerová, Stefan Major, Václav Nosek, Bohuslav Novotný, Julie Prokopová, Antonín Sochor, Rudolf Strechaj, Josef Tesla, Rudolf Vetiska, Jan Vodička, Bohuslav Vrbenský and Antonín Zmrhal.