Switzerland's first motorway ran from Lucerne to Ennethorw. Illustration by Marco Heer.
Switzerland’s first motorway

In summer 1955, Switzerland’s first motorway was opened in Lucerne. It was the first piece of the puzzle of what is now the national road network, today covering around 2,254 kilometres.

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.

Talented Swiss waterskier Alice Baumann training on Lake Zurich, August 1962.
A balancing act on water

Alice Baumann was one of the world’s most successful waterskiers in the 1960s. Time for a look at some exhilarating photos from the pioneering age of water skiing.

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When Napoleon III went to school in Thun

Medea Vögeli 25.07.2024 The Swiss town of Thun was a magnet for tourists in the 19th century. The future Emperor Napoleon III also came to the Bernese Oberland, though not for leisure, but to attend the military academy there.
Louis-Napoleon, the future Emperor of the French, earned his military stripes at the military academy in Thun.

War crimes on Switzerland’s doorstep

Raphael Rues 23.07.2024 The Ossola region at Switzerland’s southern border experienced escalating violence between 1943 and 1945. Many war crimes were committed resulting in hundreds of casualties. A look back at what caused this horror.
A picture of 45 civilians in Verbania. They were shot on the same day, 20 June 1944, by SS-Polizei soldiers.

A witness to the Deluge

Felix Graf 18.07.2024 The fossilised skeleton of a giant salamander found in the stone quarries at Öhningen is one of the most famous fossil finds in history. Zurich-born Johann Jakob Scheuchzer believed it to be the remains of a human who had drowned in the biblical Flood.
The Schienerberg landscape 13 million years ago. Detail from a monumental painting by Zurich-based landscape and architectural artist Adolf Rudolf Holzhalb, Zurich, 1871.

A Sausage, Arsenic, and the Death Penalty: The Case of Furrer

Patrik Süess 16.07.2024 The case of murderer Johann Heinrich Furrer triggered heated debate about the abolition of the death penalty in the 1860s.
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The dream of an alpine waterway

Helmut Stalder 27.06.2024 Pietro Caminada had a simple idea to turn the inconceivable into reality: huge cargo ships crossing the Alps without using self-propulsion. The stroke of genius by the engineer with Graubünden roots was a viable project – at least he thought so.
A mountain pass complete with waterway: Caminada’s canal of parallel lock chambers up in the Alps.

The Battle of Murten

James Blake Wiener 21.06.2024 In the Battle of Murten on 22 June 1476, the Swiss Confederate army defeated that of Charles the Bold of Burgundy. The battle marked the beginning of the end of Burgundy as a major European power and became a cornerstone of national pride in traditional Swiss historiography.
Battle of Murten. The illustration (detail) from the Lucerne Schilling Chronicle is based on the large battle depiction from 1480 in Fribourg Town Hall.

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.

Lies, torture, death: the case of Anna Koch

Patrik Süess 04.06.2024 In 1849, Johann Mazenauer was suspected of murdering his girlfriend. The authorities in Appenzell wanted a confession and would use any means to get one. But they failed, as the woman was actually killed by the accused’s ex-lover.
Anna Koch murdered a rival and blamed the crime on her former lover. Illustration by Marco Heer

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