Zwei Fussballerinnen beim Training hinter dem Zürcher Letzigrund-Stadion, März 1968.
Football for all – but only for the last 50 years

1968 marked a turning point in the history of Swiss football. It was the year the sport finally became accessible to everyone: on 28 February, with the establishment of ‘Damen-Fussball-Club Zürich’ (DFCZ), Switzerland’s first women’s football club was founded.

The Bürgenstock: an idyllic ensemble with hotels, mountains, lake and lift. Postcard from 1928.
Europe’s highest open-air lift

The Bürgenstock has always known how to skilfully attract attention, as it did back in 1905 for example with the spectacular Hammetschwand lift – a marvel of Swiss engineering. Over the years, the lift has been a source of both admiration and rumour.

Glacier changes have been documented since the 19th century. Illustration by Marco Heer.
Internationally coordinated glacier measurements: a lofty challenge

Internationally coordinated glacier observation originated in Switzerland. Maintaining glacier measurements proved difficult during the two world wars. However, Paul-Louis Mercanton from Switzerland kept the research work going amidst the global turmoil.

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The emperor who spoke Swiss-German

Michael van Orsouw 13.06.2025 Napoleon III, Emperor of the French (1808–1873) grew up in Salenstein in the canton of Thurgau, which is why he spoke the local Swiss German dialect. Although he was French, the people of Thurgau awarded him honorary citizenship. When Switzerland refused to expel him, it almost resulted in war with France.
Louis-Napoleon, who was later to become Emperor Napoleon III, grew up in Thurgau and spoke fluent Swiss-German. Illustration by Marco Heer.

The royal philanderer

Michael van Orsouw 11.06.2025 Louis-Philippe (1773–1850), Duke of Orléans and the man who would eventually become King of the French, spent some time in Switzerland after fleeing the turmoil that followed the French Revolution. He lived in the cantons of Zurich, Zug, Aargau and Graubünden – and his story continues to inspire Swiss novelists to this day.
The future king Louis-Philippe, incognito as a teacher in Reichenau, points at the globe.

The carpet dealer from Winterthur

Dominik Landwehr 05.06.2025 Johann Philipp Ziegler was a merchant from Winterthur. In the late 19th century, his company was the biggest exporter of Oriental carpets from what is now Iran.
View of the branch office of Ziegler & Co. in Sultanabad, 1880s.

The prince who took a short cut

Michael van Orsouw 03.06.2025 Prince Philip, the Queen’s consort and father of the current British monarch, visited Switzerland many times ‒ far more often than his wife. On one such occasion, he took part in the 1981 European Four-in-Hand Carriage Driving Championship held in Zug, where his actions placed the jury in a delicate situation.
Prince Philip on the box seat: more of a gentleman than an athlete. Photo taken at the opening of the Driving World Championship for Four-in-Hand in the Netherlands in August 1982.
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Popular posts

Sexuality in the Middle Ages

Valérie Lüthi 13.06.2024 If we hazard a look at the medieval era, we discover a history of sexuality that is far more multilayered than we might at first have imagined. While the Christian church sought to extend its influence into private bedchambers, ‘lascivious’ attitudes and practices stood in the way of its ambitions.
Detail from The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, 1490-1500.

When Chaplin's corpse was kidnapped

Michael van Orsouw 13.06.2023 Celebrated actor-director Charlie Chaplin died in 1977 and was buried in the cemetery at Corsier-sur-Vevey. But then, grave robbers dug up his body and demanded large sums of money from the family for its return. A macabre story that could have come straight from one of Chaplin's films, but did in fact happen.
Stop, the story isn't quite over yet! Charlie Chaplin in front of his house in Corsier-sur-Vevey, circa 1965.

Emperor Haile Selassie, God of the Rastafarians

Murielle Schlup 28.01.2022 Emperor Haile Selassie (1892-1975), who was crowned ‘King of Kings’ in Addis Ababa in 1930, was believed in Ethiopia to have been chosen by God. The Rastafarians in Jamaica even ‘recognised’ him as their Messiah and God. A look at the dual ‘careers’ of a 20th-century figure who was as remarkable as he was controversial.
Haile Selassie I in his limousine during his state visit to Bern on 25 November 1954. His headdress is decorated with a lion’s mane.

How a women’s choir charmed a general during World War Two

Murielle Schlup 08.05.2025 Jegenstorf Castle was used as a command post by General Henri Guisan during the last months of the Second World War. Performances by the local all-female choir provided him with some welcome relief from his military duties.
Clearly delighted, the general holds up the present from the Jegenstorf women’s choir, given to him as an honorary member at his Verte Rive home. Photo edited by Klaas Kaat.

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