The dichromatic number of a digraph is the smallest number of acyclic subsets of vertices (not spanning a directed cycle) that can be used to cover its vertex-set. This parameter is a natural extension of the chromatic number to directed graphs and has been introduced in 1980 by Erdös and Neumann-Lara. Since 2000, many groups of authors have studied this parameter intensively and in various settings. In this talk, I will give a small survey of this topic, which has concerned me quite a bit in the last 3-epsilon years. I will also mention own results obtained during my PhD at appropriate places.