Why did two respectable Schaffhausen noblemen have a duel on a freezing cold January afternoon in 1659? And in Solothurn? The story of a long-standing family feud.

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 Why her personal notes are in Switzerland’s Federal Archives, and why they remained unpublished until 1984…

Emil Frey fought in the American Civil War as an army major. In 1890 he became a Federal Councillor. His dual citizenship didn’t bother anyone.

Fridolin Anderwert took his own life on 25 December 1880. The Federal Councillor’s suicide came after a smear campaign by the media.

In some parliaments things get rough now and then; they even turn violent from time to time. Not in Switzerland. In this country, mutual respect and a spirit of compromise are usually the order of the day. That hasn’t always been the case, though, as an example from 1848 shows.

When Václav Havel made a state visit to Switzerland in 1990, it was a minor sensation. Diplomatic documents shed light on the event from a variety of perspectives.

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.

On 18 October 1940 in Sarnen, the last death sentence under civil law in Switzerland was carried out. Although Hans Vollenweider had killed three people, he was convicted of only one murder.