Kurt Messmer03.10.2024Small towns are rich in cultural history, remnants of which leave their mark on the public space and shape our historical awareness. Willisau is no exception: a small town that wears its biography openly, with an enticing mix of the typical and the unusual that is both instructive and appealing.
Barbara Basting01.10.2024Cotton was the most important commodity of the 19th century. Yet very few artists took an interest in it. One who did was Edgar Degas. His painting of a cotton office in New Orleans is a truly spectacular work.
Raphael Rues26.09.2024Without the help of the British and Americans, resistance against the German and fascist occupation of Ossola would have come to nothing. However, the region’s partisans had hoped for more in the way of support.
Patrik Süess24.09.2024With the help of a homeless woman named Klara Wendel, in 1825 the authorities in Lucerne hoped to uncover a conspiracy behind the death of the city mayor, Franz Xaver Keller, nine years earlier.
James Blake Wiener12.09.2024The Battle of Malplaquet, fought on September 11, 1709 in what is present-day Belgium at the height of the War of the Spanish Succession, was the bloodiest battle of the eighteenth century with over 22,000 dead and wounded. Swiss mercenaries faced each other on the battlefield; 8,000 lost their lives.
Daniela Schwab10.09.2024The term is relatively recent but the concept is as old as mankind: the 'circular economy' where goods are reused, recycled and repaired.
