istoryworld
Events relating to switzerland
The Swiss forest districts of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden sign an Everlasting League (in the Rütli meadow) to resist Habsburg domination
The first open-air democratic assembly, later characteristic of the Swiss cantons, is held in Schwyz
The Swiss, defeating the Habsburgs at Morgarten, make lethal use of their halberds - designed to jab, grapple and slash
The leading role of Schwyz in the victory at Morgarten causes the independent cantons to become informally known as the Swiss confederation
William Tell, a figure of legend, epitomizes the struggle of the Swiss farmers against their feudal overlords, the Habsburgs
The Swiss win a decisive victory at Morat over the army of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy
Civil war between squabbling Swiss cantons is averted by the diplomcy of a hermit, Brother Klaus, at the Convention of Stans
The Swiss (or Swabian) War ends with the treaty of Basel, bringing effective recognition of Swiss independence from the Habsburg empire
The German painter Hans Holbein the Younger establishes his own studio in Basel
Huldreich Zwingli eats sausage in Lent in Zurich, launching the Swiss Reformation
Conrad Grebel baptises an adult, causing outrage in Protestant Zurich
Zwingli is killed at Kappel in a battle between Protestant and Catholic cantons
Protestant reformer John Calvin settles in Geneva and submits the city to a strict Christian rule
Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin begins work classifying 6000 plants on a new binomial system of nomenclature
Geneva wins independence from the duchy of Savoy, in the treaty of St Julien, after repelling a midnight assault on the city
The Swiss cantons agree on joint action to defend their external borders, in the pact known as the Defensionale of Wyl
Louis Agassiz builds a hut on the Aar glacier in Switzerland and succeeds in recording gradual movement of the ice
Swiss scientist Louis Agassiz argues, in his Study on Glaciers, that much of Europe was recently in the grip of an ice age
Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz completes his pioneering Poissons Fossiles ('Fossil Fish'), classifying more than 1500 categories
Swiss humanitarian Henri Dunant publishes A Memory of Solferino, proposing an international agency to cope with the battlefield casualties he has witnessed
Henri Dunant and others establish the Red Cross in Geneva, as a direct result of the battlefield casualties Dunant has witnessed at Solferino in 1859
The first Geneva Convention establishes standards for the treatment of the wounded in war
The first Zionist Congress is held in Basel with Theodor Herzl in the chair
The first boat to be powered by a combustion engine, the 125-ton vessel Venoga, is launched on Lake Geneva
The Simplon rail tunnel, the longest in the world (20 km), is opened between Switzerland and Italy
