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.

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.

Im Oktober 1944 kam es im Val Formazza nahe der Schweizer Grenze zu einem Kampf zwischen den sich zurückziehenden Partisanen und den deutschen und faschistischen Truppen. Einige Widerstandskämpfer konnten in die Schweiz flüchten.
The Ossola Republic

In autumn 1944, partisan groups liberated a sizeable territory around Domodossola from the Nazis and founded their own republic. But the resistance fighters were at odds with one another and after just over a month the dream of an independent state came to an end. The story of a tragedy on the border with Switzerland.

Latest posts

Cocoa in Ghana: how it all began

Pascale Meyer 21.11.2024 Ghana is the world’s largest producer of cocoa. Pre-independence, the Basel Mission was one of the players making money from the cocoa trade in the Gold Coast region. It ran an agricultural research station there from the middle of the 19th century and attempted to cultivate the cocoa plant ‒ with varying degrees of success.
Local workers and a supervisor dressed in ‘colonial whites’ at a cocoa drying area run by the Basel Mission Trading Company in Accra in what is now Ghana (1904/1905).

The birth of aerial mountain rescue

Katrin Brunner 19.11.2024 When a Dakota C-53 made an emergency landing on the Gauli Glacier at over 3,000 meters in November 1946, it was not only a feat of piloting skill. The rescue of all twelve survivors also marked the beginning of modern aerial mountain rescue.
With their feet, the stranded passengers wrote the French word “fini” (meaning “finish”) in the snow to stop the dangerous air drops of supplies.

The American Revolutionary War through the eyes of a Swiss immigrant

Maximilian Spitz 14.11.2024 Hans Joachim Züblin from eastern Switzerland caused a furore in 18th century America. As minister John Zubly, he saw parallels between the Swiss Confederates and the rebels fighting against the British. He later changed sides, albeit with an unchanged outlook.
John Zubly merged religion with politics and compared parts of Swiss history to the American resistance against Great Britain. Illustration by Marco Heer

The inventor in a Benedictine cowl

Michael van Orsouw 12.11.2024 Father Athanasius Tschopp (1803–1882) was a monk in Einsiedeln, and something of a science whizz. Besides his daily monastic duties, he always found the time to make pioneering discoveries – one of his many accomplishments was inventing the precursor to the fax machine.
Athanasius Tschopp invented the precursor to the fax machine. Lithograph circa 1840. Coloured using AI.
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Popular posts

Visiting the Rigi used to make people ill, why?

Adi Kälin 22.10.2024 120 years ago, many people complained of severe diarrhoea and vomiting following a visit to the Rigi. For a long time, people blamed the ‘Rigikrankheit’ (as the condition was known) on the mountain air, until a high profile defamation trial uncovered a major environmental scandal.
Tourists on the Rigi. Postcard from 1910.

The execution of Ernst S.

Ernst Ziegler 24.10.2024 During the Second World War, Ernst Schrämli from St. Gallen was sentenced to death for spying and executed on 10 November 1942 in a small wood in eastern Switzerland. Schrämli had relayed military secrets and information to a German agent.
Ernst Schrämli in uniform and in civilian attire at his arrest in January 1942.

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.

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.

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