Noëmi Crain Merz13.02.2025The story of a petition demanding voting rights for women, which attracted 250,000 signatures before being stuffed in a drawer and forgotten about for decades.
Gabriel Heim04.02.2025The Swiss Tropical Institute was founded in 1943 out of a fear of post-war unemployment. It was designed to promote the emigration of young people to Africa and the world’s tropical regions.
Christophe Vuilleumier07.01.2025Renée Pellet was the first woman from French-speaking Switzerland to be elected to an executive body in 1960. As deputy mayor of Meyrin, she secured her place in Swiss political history.
Thomas Bürgisser01.01.2025The degree to which Swiss domestic and foreign policy are intertwined has seldom become so apparent as in 1994. That year, the electorate repeatedly opposed the Federal Council’s pursuit of international openness.
Géraldine Lysser17.12.2024Marshal Carl Gustaf Mannerheim led tiny Finland’s stand in several wars against the Goliath that was the Soviet Union, earning him considerable admiration among the Swiss.
Kurt Messmer28.11.2024Located half-way between Freiburg and Colmar, the German town of Breisach (in the state of Baden-Württemberg) looms high above the Rhine, dominating the skyline. The town’s strategic location is inextricably linked to the chequered history of this key region of Europe.
Christophe Vuilleumier26.11.2024The rise of Geneva, the home of Calvinism, owed much to the Turrettini family. Arriving there from Tuscany in the 16th century with ready money and access to an international network, they played no small part in buoying the city’s economy.
Pascale Meyer21.11.2024Ghana 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.