SS 2004 1902 Accommodation: . Winter
sports: .. Visitors: 1903 Winter
sports: E.C. Richardson founds the Ski
Club of Great Britain and the Davos
English Ski Club. . Visitors
/ Residents: . Music: . Transport: 1904 Winter
sports: . Visitors: 1905 Winter
sports: . Travel
books: . Accommodation: 1906 Transport: . Accommodation: . Sport: 1907 Winter
sports: . Transport: 1908 Visitors: . Accommodation: 1909 Winter
sports: 1910 Residents: . Winter
sports: . Transport: . Literature: George
V 1911 Winter
sports: . Visitors: 1912 Transport: . Accommodation: . Visitors: . Winter
sports: 1913 Transport: . Visitors: 1914 History
/ Politics: . Transport: . Accommodation: 1915 History
/ Politics: Five
British journalists are taken for spies
and arrested. Four are released, . Transport: . Music: 1916 Literature: . Visitors: 1918 History
/ Politics: 1919 History
/ Politics: . Visitors: . Transport: 1920 History
/ Politics: 1921 Visitors: 1922 Transport: . Visitors: 1923 Mountaineering: 1924 Winter
sports: 1925 History
/ Politics: . Transport: . Winter
sports: 1927 Two
English girls' public schools founded:
St
George's
College
at Montana-Clarens, Chatelard School at
Les Avants (Montreux) . Transport: . Visitors: . Winter
sports: 1928 Winter
sports: . Visitors: 1929 Visitors: . Sport
/ Winter sports: . Transport: 1930 Transport: 1931 Visitors: . Film: . Transport: 1932 Transport: 1933 Visitors: 1934 Winter
sports: 1935 Transport: Eduard
VIII 1936 History
/ Politics: George
VI 1937 History
/ Politics: 1938 Transport: .. Visitors: 1939 History
/ Politics: 1940 History
/ Politics: .. Visitors: 1941 History
/ Politics: 1943 Visitors: 1944 History
/ Politics: 1945 History
/ Politics: 1946 Zurich:
Winston Churchill's Speech
"The
Tragedy of
Europe". . Music: . Visitors: 1947 Visitors: 1948 Anglo-Swiss
Society founded in London. . Film: . Winter
Sports: 1950 Travel
books: 1951 History
/ Politics: . Transport: Elizabeth
II 1953 History
/ Politics: .. Music: Residents: . Visitors: 1955 Sir
Winston
Churchill
resigns. Anthony
Robert
Eden
(Conservative Party) till 1957. .
5 Music: 1956 History
/ Politics: .
5 Transport: . Travel
Books: 1957 History
/ Politics: . Music: 1958 Nikita
Khrushchev General Secretary of the
USSR Noel
Coward
(1899-1973) moves to Montreux (Les
Avants) . Prof.
Rudolf Stamm founds the Swiss-British
Society in Berne. 1960 Music: . Visitors: . Transport: 1961 History
/ Politics: Visitors: 1962 Prof.
Rudolf Stamm founds the Swiss-British
Society in Basel. 1963 History
/ Politics: .. Film: 1965 History
/ Politics: 1967 Music: 1968 Assassination
of Martin Luther King in Memphis. Vietnam
War: Massacre in My Lai. Prague Spring;
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Revolution
in Paris. 1969 Richard
M. Nixon president
of the US. Neil Armstrong the first man on
the moon. .. Visitors: 1970 Harold
Wilson
(Labour) resigns as Prime Minister.
Edward
Heath
(Conservative Party) till 1974, succeeded
by Harold
Wilson
(Labour). Visitors: 1971 State
visit: 1972 History
/ Politics: 1973 History
/ Politics: 1974 History
/ Politics: 1976 History
/ Politics: 1978 Film: . Residents: 1979 History
/ Politics: 1980 Visitors: . Transport: . Literature
on Switzerland: 1981 History
/ Politics: 1982 History
/ Politics: . Transport: . Residents: 1984 Transport:
Metro Alpin ( high-mountain underground
railway) Saas Fee. 1985 Michael
Gorbachov General Secretary in
USSR . Winter
sports: St. Moritz: 1st polo tournament on
the frozen lake. 1986 Winter
sports: 1989 History
/ Politics: 1990 History
/ Politics: 1991 History
/ Politics: . Graham
Greene
dies in Vevey, where he has lived for the
last ten years. 1993 History
/ Politics: 1994 Music: 1995 Patricia
Highsmith
dies in Locarno, where she has spent her
last years. She leaves over 250
unpublished texts to the Swiss Literary
Archives. 1997 History
/ Politics: 1997 Music: 2001 George
W. Bush
elected as 43rd president of the
US. other
timelines:
Department of English, University of Basel
Literature and Culture Studies: Seminar M.
Marti
British and American Visitors in Switzerland:
History of Tourism in Switzerland
d
till
1789
/ The
Romantics (1789 - 1837)
/ The
Victorians
/ 20th century
full timeline (one
page)
course
programme
(provisional)
Edward
VII
1901-1910
Villa
Cassel
(Riederalp)
Tour operator Sir Henry Lunn popularises
winter sports in the Bernese Oberland.
Adelboden is opened for one of his winter
tours.
Benito Mussolini is arrested in Lausanne
for vagrancy.
Anglican Churches as indicators of the
most fashionable places for British
tourists:
By 1903, there are English churches at:
Arolla, Adelboden, Andermatt, Les Avants,
Ballaigues, Beatenberg, Bex, Champery,
Chandolin, Chateau d'Oex, Clarens, Davos,
Les Diablerets, Eggishorn, Gletsch, Glion,
Grindelwald, Interlaken, Leukerbad,
Leysin, Locarno, Lucerne, Montreux,
Neuchatel, Pully, Riffelalp, Saas-Fee,
Samedan, Schinznach, St. Moritz, Tarasp, Thun,
Verbier, Vevey, Villars, Wengen and
Zermatt.
Geneva's concert hall (Victoria Hall) is
given to the city by Daniel Barton, a
former British consul.
Albulatunnel (Grisons)
The first ski book written in English:
Ski-Running, by Crichton Somerville,
W.R. Richardson and E.C.
Richardson
James
Joyce
spends a week in Zurich
Lenin visits Geneva, Berne, Meiringen.
Benito Mussolini is arrested for carrying
a falsified passport.
Sir
Henry
Lunn
forms the Public Schools Alpine Sports
Club to popularize winter sports. The Club
secures securing winter use of the major
hotels in Adelboden, Montana, Villars,
Beatenberg, Wengen, Murren, Engelberg,
Maloja and Morgins.
St Moritz: Ski Club announces proficiency
test: Members are expected to perform a
Telemark swing, a Christiana swing, a stem
turn. (Bernard, p. 160)
E. Lamprell, A Fortnight in Switzerland
for Five Guineas (for cheap
travelling)
Montana: Sir
Henry
Lunn's
company ("Alpine Sports Ltd.") buys the
sanatorium le Beauregard and changes it
into the hotel Palace-Bellevue
St Moritz: Grand Hotel opened.
Simplon railway opened (The
Simplon
Tunnel
remains with 19,803 m the world's longest
tunnel till 1985)
Postcars (automobiles) used for public
transport in Berne.
Niesenbahn
(mountain railway) completed
Grand
Hotel du
Golf,
Montana:
Sir Arnold Lunn introduces Golf in Montana
Crans.
1st horse race on the frozen lake of St.
Moritz.
Ladies Ski Club of Great Britain founded
by Mrs. Aubry Le Blond
Railway Aigle - Ollon - Monthey
Arnold
Bennett
(1876-1931) visits Vevey and comments:
"Really the scene is enchantingly
beautiful"
Frederic
Harrison:
My Alpine Jubilee "I hold, with
Rousseau, Byron and Ruskin, that the
highest and deepest charm the Alps can
give is found in their combination of
glories, as often as not in the lakes,
their wooded valleys, their upland
pastures - nay, even in their villages and
towns - with their long record of
memorable things in literature, science,
history and art." (Wraight, p.
288)
Flüelen: Gasthof Adler (1934:
"Urnerhof")
Sir
Henry
Lunn
opens up Mürren as a winter sports
resort by organising tours.
Mountaineering: W.A.M. Moore crosses the
Col de la Dent Blanche and the Col
d'Hérens from Zinal to Zermatt on
ski.
The number of British residents in
Switzerland amounts to 11,000
Visitors:
Arnold
Bennett
in Lausanne (Clayhanger)
Llewelyn Powys (1884-1939) at
Davos
Vivian Caulfield: How to
Ski
Bernina railway (Berninabahn) opened
Martigny-Orsières railway
opened
Francis William Bourdillon (1852-1921):
Ode In Defence of the Matterhorn against
the proposed Railway to its
Summit.
1910-1936
British skiers (Arnold Lunn) organise the
first downhill ski race for the Kandahar
Challenge Cup at Montana.
A Curling club is formed in
Wengen.
Thomas Alva Edison: Bad
Pfäfers
First non-stop flight from Paris to
London. The Titanic sinks on its maiden
voyage.
Jungfraujochbahn
completed ("Top of Europe", 3457 m)
Sierre-Montana-Vermala-railway opened
Communication:
Anglo-Swiss Telephone service
Mürren: Henry Lunn ("Alpine Sports
Ltd") acquires the "Grand Hotel des Alpes"
in 1912 and run it as the Hotel
Palace.
Anton Sebastian Bon (1854.1915) and Major
Goldman build the Suvretta
House
hotel in St. Moritz.
A survey shows that there are 12,640
hotels in Switzerland, with a total of
384,744 beds (Bernard, p. 169)
Number of British tourists in Lucerne
during the summer season: over 20,000.
"The Swiss tourism infrastructure, which
already catered for an extended summer
visitor season with a large number of
`health stations', was converted into
winter use. In 1880 the bed count stood at
43,850. The number had doubled by 1894 and
in 1912 reached 168,625, the year an
expected 18,000 British would visit the
Alps for winter sporting." (E. J. B.
Allen,The British and the modernisation of
skiing: History
Today)
13 villages placed weekly snow reports in
the Times.
An association of British members of the
Swiss Alpine Club founded. Britannia Club
Hut (above Saas Fee)
Lötschbergbahn
completed.
The railway net in Graubünden
(Rhätische
Bahn)
is completed.
Chantarella-Bahn in St. Moritz
D.H.
Lawrence
(1885-1930): "I walked all the way from
Schaffhausen to Zurich, Lucerne, over the
Gotthard to Airolo, Bellinzona, Lugano,
Como. It was beautiful - Switzerland too
touristy, hovever - spoilt." (Beer, p.
444)
(Twilight in Italy:, ch. 3 and 4:
Italians
in Exile:
"There is something very dead about this
country. I remember I picked apples from
the grass by the roadside, and some were
very sweet. But for the rest, there was
mile after mile of dead, uninspired
country&emdash;uninspired, so neutral and
ordinary that it was almost destructive."
The
Return
Journey:
"... I went on to a detestable brutal inn
in the town. And the next day I climbed
over the back of the detestable Rigi, with
its vile hotel, to come to Lucerne.
")
The assassination of Archduke Francis
Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in Sarajewo
leads to World War I.
Furkabahn
Brig-Gletsch
completed.
Montana: Hôtel d'Angleterre
Lenin and Trotzky organize the Third
International at Zimmerwald.
James
Elroy
Flecker
(1884-1915) dies in Davos.
James
Joyce
(1882-1941) arrives in Zurich, he stays
till 1919 and returns several times in the
1930ies. the fifth expelled.
Leuk-Leukerbadbahn (railway), till
1967
Richard Strauss, Alpensymphonie
(Alpine Symphony), op. 64
Tristan Tzara discovers the word "Dada" at
the Cafe de la Terrasse in
Zurich.
1,800 British prisoners of war from
Germany arrive in Switzerland for
internment until the end of the war. They
are put up by the Red Cross in hotels and
camps in Mürren, Interlaken, Chateau
d'Oex, Leysin.
Repatriation of POWs completed.
Vorarlberg would like to join
Switzerland.
Treaty of Versailles ends World War
I.
Woodrow Wilson becomes honorary citizen of
Lausanne.
The Simplon
Orient
Express
starts running daily from Calais and Paris
Gare de Lyon to Lausanne, Brig, Simplon,
Milan, Venice, Belgrade, Sofia and
Istanbul, with a portion for
Athens.
League
of
Nations
(Völkerbund) in Geneva
T.S.
Eliot
(1880-1965) comes to Lausanne.
The
Waste
Land
("What the Thunder Said") refers
frequently to mountains. Later in the year
he spends some time in Lugano.
First electrified railway line: Chiasso -
Luzern
Ad Astra Aero: regular flights beetween
Zurich, Neuchatel and Geneva.
Ernest
Hemingway
(1899 - 1961) spends 4 months in a cheap
pension (Pension de la Forêt) at
Montreux-Chamby. A Moveable Feast,
ch. 1: "Now that the bad weather had come,
we could leave Paris for a while for a
place where this rain would be snow coming
down through the pines and covering the
road and the high hillsides and at an
altitude where we would hear it creak as
we walked home at night. Below Les Avants
there was a chalet where the pension was
wonderful and where we would be together
and have our books and at night be warm in
bed together with the windows open and the
stars bright. That was where we could go.
Traveling third class on the train was not
expensive. The pension cost very little
more than we spent in Paris. "
Three British mountaineers, George Finch,
P.G. Forster and R.H. Pero, ascend the
north face of the Dent d'Herens without
guide.
Arnold Lunn, Walter Amstutz, Willy
Richardet and Fritz Ammacher ascent the
Eiger on skis.
Kandahar Ski Club founded in Mürren.
Swiss Unversity Ski Club in Berne.
F. S. Edlin creates "The Parsenn Derby", a
ski marathon.
Hitler founds Nazi party in
Germany.
Glacier-Express
Zermatt -
Disentis
(summer season only)
Balair flies Basel - Freiburg (D) -
Mannheim
Walter Amstutz and Arnold Lunn organise
Anglo-Swiss university ski
races.
Engelberg: Luftseilbahn Gerschnialp -
Trübsee (Geschichte
der Seilbahnen in der
Schweiz)
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)
First Winter Season in Zermatt.
St. Moritz hosts the Olympic Winter
Games.
Colonel Sir Harold Mitchell (1900-83) wins
the first Inferno Ski Race from the top of
the Schilthorn to Lauterbrunnen.
Miss Maud Cairney makes the first winter
ascent of the Gabelhorn on ski (with two
guides)
D.H.
Lawrence
(1885-1930): Les Diablerets,
Gsteig.
Transport:
Corvigliabahn in St. Moritz
35% of all Swiss earnings from tourism are
estimated to come from British
visitors.
Opening of the 1st ski school of
Switzerland.
Plan to build a link
between
German and Italian motorways (Gotthard
Tunnel)
Luftseilbahn Beckenried - Klewenalp
(Geschichte
der Seilbahnen in der
Schweiz)
Lord
Baden-Powell:
First World Rover Moot in Kandersteg.
Residents:
Bryher
(Annie Winfried Ellerman, 1894-1983)
starts to live at Kenwin, a Bauhaus villa
at Montreux, together with Kenneth
Macpherson, with her lesbian friend
H.D.
(Hilda
Doolittle,1886-1961),
the imagist poet, and her daughter
Perdita.
They attract a circle of friends (among
them William Walton, the Sitwells, D.H.
Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Gertrude
Stein, Elisabeth Berger, G.W. Pabst and
Sergei Eisenstein)
F.
Scott
Fizgerald
(1896 - 1940) stays in various hotels
around Montreux and Lausanne while his
wife Zelda
is in a clinic in Prangins (cf. Tender
Is the Night, 1934) He writes short
stories to be able to pay for her
treatment. (One Trip
Abroad)
Kenneth Macpherson, Borderline
Ad Astra Aero and Balair become
Swissair
Davos-Parsenn-Bahn (Geschichte
der Seilbahnen in der
Schweiz)
Due to recession and inflation, tourism
goes down, railways, steamers and hotels
lower their prices.
Davos: Opening of ice rink. Skilift Bolgen
is the first T-bar skilift
(Bügellift) (Geschichte
der Seilbahnen in der
Schweiz),
followed by more than a hundred ski-lifts
within a year.
World Skiing Championships in St.
Moritz.
Air service to London by Swissair. Return
fare London-Basel for £ 12.15s,
London-Zurich £13,16s
1936
Edward VIII abdicates after 325 days
(because of his relationship with Mrs
Wallis Simpson). his younger brother
becomes George VI
1936-1952
Neville
Chamberlain
(Conservative) Prime Minister (till
1940).
German bombers under Franco attack
civilians in Guernica in The Spanish Civil
War.
Two direct air services between
London-Basel and Zurich, taking 3,5 hours
to Basel. Cross-Channel and rail rout
London-Basel takes 13 hours.
Thorton Wilder (1897-1975) writes Our
Town in Zurich
Having helped over 100 friends to flee
from Germany, Bryher
leaves for England and stays there till
the war is over, because she fears that
Switzerland will be invaded by the
Germans.
Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression
Pact.
Germany invades Poland. Beginning of Wold
War II.
Switzerland declares
neutrality.
Battle of Britain, London Blitz
Sir
Winston
Churchill
Prime Minister (Conservative Party) till
1945
James
Joyce
(1882-1941) spends the last year of his
life in Zurich (and is buried
there)
After bombs were dropped on Zurich and
Basel, the Swiss government protests to
the British government.
Following the fall of Mussolini, there are
mass escapes of prisoners of war from
Italian prison camps trying to reach
Switzerland via the mountain passes into
the Valais.
Russians break the siege of Leningrad. The
Allies land in Normandy (June 6th:
D-Day)
Clement
Richard
Attlee
Prime Minister (Labour) till 1951. U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies.
Mussolini killed. Germany surrenders. US
President Harry
S. Truman
authorizes the dropping of the atomic
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Yalta
Conference.
Beginning of Cold
War
Sir Malcolm Sargent opens the Lucerne
Festival with performances of Edward
Elgar, Gustav Holst and Benjamin
Britten.
At Glynebourne Opera House Ernest Ansermet
(1883-1969) conducts the first English
performance of Britten's The Rape of
Lucretia.
Churchill spends several weeks on holiday
in a villa on the Lake of Geneva. Field
Marshall Lord Montgomery.
British tourists begin to come again.
(appr. 200,000)
Charles Grave: Switzerland
Revisited
In Carol Leed's The
Third
Man,
Graham
Greene
lets Harry Lime (Orson Wells) say: ""In
Italy for 30 years the Borgias, they had
warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They
produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci
and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they
had brotherly love, five hundred years of
democracy and peace. And what did that
produce. The cuckoo clock."
St. Moritz hosts its second Olympic Winter
Game
Monk Gibbon. Swiss
Enchantment
Sir
Winston
Churchill
Prime Minister (Conservative Party) till
1955
Saas Fee can be reached by car.
1952 -
General Dwight
D.
Eisenhower
is elected president of the United States
(remains till 1961). Death of Stalin. Sir
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay conquer
Everest.
Michael Tippet's "Ritual Dances" from
The Midsummer Marriage first
performed in Basel, Basel Kammerorchester
conducted by Paul Sacher.
Charles
Chaplin (1889-1977)
moves to Montreux (Manoir de
Ban).
Kandersteg: World Rover Moot
Sputnik launched.
Webmaster born.
Benjamin
Britten (1913-1976)
writes Alpine Suite (for recorder
trio) while on a skiing holiday with
friends in Zermatt.
Hungarian
Revolt.
TEE (Trans European Express)
trains
Switzerland on £25 shows how
to spend ten days in reasonable
comfort.
Suez Crisis. Eden resigns
Maurice
Harold
MacMillan
(Conservative Party) PM till 1963.
Succeeded by Sir
Alec Douglas
Home
(Conservative Party, till 1965)
Yehudi
Menuhin
begins his annual summer music festival in
Saanen near Gstaad.
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) is
commissioned to write a cantata in honour
of the 500th aniverary of the University's
foundation.
Vladimir
Nabokov
(1899-1977) comes to live in Montreux.
Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) builds a
chalet at Corsier.
Construction of motorways
(Nationalstrassen)
accepted by vote in Switzerland
John
F.
Kennedy
president of the US. Us attack at the Bay
of Pigs in Cuba fails: Cuba Crisis
(1961-62). The Berlin wall is built. Yuri
Gagarin first man in space.
H.D.
(see also 1931) dies at the Klinik
Hirlanden (Zurich).
Harold
Wilson
(Labour Party) Prime Minister. (till
1976)
"March on Washington" by the Civil Rights
Movement. John F. Kennedy killed in
Dallas, Texas; followed by
Lyndon
B.
Johnson
(till 69). Escalation
of the war in Vietnam.
The ski-station on the summit of the
Schilthorn is chosen as the main setting
for the James-Bond-film On Her
Majesty's Secret Service.
Capital punishment abolished in Britain.
First anti-Vietnam war march in
Washington
Rolling
Stones
in Zurich (rioting fans)
First Montreux
Jazz Festival
Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) dies in
Visp.
Timothy
Leary gets
asylum in Switzerland (Montana) -
extradited in 1974.
Edward Heath addresses a big audience in
Zurich, commemorating the 25th anniversary
of Winston Churchill's speech on European
unity.
Watergate
scandal in US
cease-fire in Vietnam
Harold
Wilson
(Labour) Prime Minister till 1976. Nixon
(impeached for covering up Watergate)
abdicates. Gerald
Ford
(till 1977)
Wilson unexpectedly resigns;
Callaghan
succeeds him as PM (till 1979)
Charles Chaplin dies in his home in
Lausanne.
After Queen's concert at the Montreux Jazz
Festival Freddie
Mercury
(1946-91) buys an appartment at Territet
(Montreux).
Margareth
Thatcher
("Iron Lady") Conservative Prime Minister
(till 1990)
State visit by Queen Elizabeth and the
Duke of Edinburgh.
Residents:
The cosmopolitan actor and writer Sir
Peter Ustinov (1921 - ) settles in Bursins
(on the Lake of Geneva)
Gotthard Motorway Tunnel
opened..
Graham Green: Dr Fischer of Geneva or
the Bomb Party (novel)
Ronald
Reagan
elected as 40th US president (till
1989)
Falklands
War
Furkatunnel
enables Glacier Express
Zermatt-Disentis-Chur in the winter
season.
David Bowie (1947-) moves to Lausanne.
Patricia
Highsmith
moves to Locarno.
First Swiss Snowboarding Championship in
Davos.
George
Bush
41st American president (till 1993).
Berlin Wall comes down. Ayatollah Khomeini
pronounces Fatwa
(death sentence) for Salman
Rushdie.
John
Mayor Conservative
Prime Minister (till 1997). Iraqi troops
invade Kuwait. Gulf
War
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed in
Moscow. Boris Yeltzin elected as President
of Russia. End of Cold War. The USSR
dissolved into 15 nations. Gorbachev
resigns as head of CP
Bill
Clinton
42nd American president (till
2001)
Ralph Williams-Morgan (b. 1934)
Alpine
Symphony
Antony
Blair (Labour)
PM
Don Robertson:
Alpine Symphony
till
1789 /
The
Romantics (1789 - 1837)
/ The
Victorians /
20th century
full timeline
(one
page)
Bibliography:
de Beer, G. R. Travellers in Switzerland. London
1949
Bernard, Paul B. Rush to the Alps. New York 1978.
Jud, Markus. Geschichte der Schweiz, Verkehr
[http://www.geschichte-schweiz.ch/verkehr.html]
Müller Science: Ausländer
in der Schweiz
[http://www.muellerscience.com/SPEZIALITAETEN/Schweiz/Auslaender_in_der_Schweiz.htm]
Wraight, John. The Swiss and the British. Salisbury:
Russell:1987
course
programme (provisional)
American History: Colonial
America
/ 1789
- 1901
/ 1901
- 2003
British History: History
of Great Britain