I’m posting another canton over from fedi…
I’ve lived in the Canton of Zürich for 30 years. When I was 18, my father and my stepmum left for Indonesia for two years and when they came back I didn’t want to be there so I moved out when I was twenty or so, to Zürich, to live in shared apartments like many other students did. And then I just never went back to Aargau.
This the northern end of the lake, and the Alps in the distance. The zoom is strong in this picture. You usually can’t see the mountains because of the haze.
A city, behind it a lake, and in the far distance, snow covered mountains
Based on Wikipedia: «13th century, Zürichgau was divided between the Habsburgs and the Kyburger, who held the territory west and east of Lake Zürich, respectively. … The territory of the canton of Zürich corresponds to the lands acquired by the city of Zürich after it became reichsfrei in 1218. Zürich pursued a policy of aggressive territorial expansion especially during the century following the revolution of the guilds in 1336. Zürich joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1351.»
They bought stuff from the Habsburgs, like the city of Winterthur, and expanded. 1525 they got their own reformer (Zwingli) and took over of the abbeys on their territory – and their income. (The abbeys who were located outside their territory who owned stuff in the territory kept it.)
The city only lost its power when the army of the French Revolution arrived in 1798. Yay! To illustrate the national spirit, Napoleon had to create a new constitution in 1803 because the Swiss kept quarrelling. This is when the canton was created. Before that, Zürich was a city state. When the French lost in 1813, a new constitution was drafted in secret and put into place without a vote. Surprising nobody, it was very much in favour of the city. But when the French July revolution of 1830 broke out, things got moving again and instead of risking a revolt, a more liberal constitution was put into place in 1831.
Finally, equal rights for all men. (Ugh.)
The university was founded in 1833. There was a coup by the reaction in 1839 but it was short lived. The liberals were back in power in 1845. When the catholic cantons went to war in 1847 (the last civil war in Switzerland) the liberals won again. The liberal elite ruled, created banks, insurances, train companies – until we got a left-liberal constitution in 1869, peacefully. Yay!!
That constitution also got rid of capital punishment. Double yay!
Something I learned from the German Wikipedia article: 2001 some officials called the 84 murders for witchcraft between 1478 and 1701 “judicial murders” and apparently that was the only attempt at rehabilitation.
The attempt to give women the vote failed in 1920 (and a few times thereafter) until 1963 in church matters, 1969 in communal matters, in 1970 for the canton and 1971 for the nation. Sooooo late!
More, in German: Geschichte des Kantons Zürich.
#Switzerland #History #Cantons
