On 15 June 1844, a railway train ran on Swiss territory for the first time. The train didn’t go from Baden to Zurich; instead, it ran a distance of about two kilometres from the French border to the city of Basel.

It can be hard to get a true picture of something when you’re only seeing it from the inside – to really understand it, you need the view from outside as well. Take the Swiss mentality, for example. On closer inspection, our mindset turns out to be a multifaceted mirror reflecting a country filled with paradoxes and contradictions.

Every 31 December and 13 January, bizarre and fantastical figures rove the hinterland of the Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden. Some wear ornate headdresses, others grotesque animal faces. These are the «Silvesterkläuse» that usher out the old year and ring in the new.

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.

Doing your job within your own four walls isn’t a phenomenon of the computer age. But while the home office in most cases entails a better quality of life, the type of working from home that many people did before industrialisation was an exploitative form of working.

Stone stelas from Neolithic Europe tell of a new social class: the heavily armed warriors who were supposed to protect the property of the elites.

Painted glass windows have been bringing light and colour into dark church rooms since the 13th century. But how is a glass painting actually made?

On 6 August 1986, Alain Charmey from Vaud became the first person to swim the entire length of Lake Geneva. A press photographer was on the spot to capture the moment.