History Of Switzerland
Since 1848, the Swiss Confederation has been a federal state of relatively autonomous cantons, some of which have a history of confederacy that goes back more than 700 years, arguably putting them among the world's oldest surviving republics. For the time before 1291, this article summarizes events taking place on the territory of modern Switzerland. From 1291, it focuses mainly on the fates of the Old Swiss Confederacy, at first consisting of only three cantons (Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden) in what is now central Switzerland, and gradually expanding until it encompassed the present-day area of Switzerland in 1815.
Read more about History Of Switzerland: Early History, Old Confederacy (1291–1523), Reformation (1523–1648), Ancien Régime (1648–1798), Napoleonic Era (1798–1848), Switzerland As A Federal State (1848–1914), World Wars (1914–45), After 1945
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or switzerland:
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (18181883)
“In a war everybody always knows all about Switzerland, in peace times it is just Switzerland but in war time it is the only country that everybody has confidence in, everybody.”
—Gertrude Stein (18741946)