Germaine de Staël was a Swiss author and thinker during the French Revolution. Even Napoleon feared the strong and well-connected personality and banished her from Paris.

Teresa Bontempi helped shape the history of Ticino at the beginning of the 20th century, first as a teacher, and later as an advocate of fascism. She was a woman with two faces.

Empress Elisabeth ‘Sisi’ of Austria-Hungary was also a poetess. Why her personal notes are in Switzerland’s Federal Archives, and why they remained unpublished until 1984…

In 1914, men marched off in a rush of euphoria to join the fighting in World War I. They were following an ideal of masculinity that would be torn to pieces in a blaze of automatic gunfire. The ideal of the glorious knight turned out to be a cruel mirage.

Ludwig Lavater was not only the successor to Huldrych Zwingli, but also a great lover of ghost stories, which he collected and published in a book.

With the advent of printing, from the late 15th century onwards printed news reports could be produced and circulated for the masses. In many cases, these reports were composed in the style of today’s tabloid media.

Lina Bögli, or the transformation from peasant girl to globe-trotting writer. The story of a remarkable 19th-century woman.

With its censorious satirical style, the Nebelspalter made a name for itself early on. Carl Böckli’s caricatures were particularly provocative, and in 1933 his work was banned in Nazi Germany.