In 58 BC at Bibracte in modern France, a Roman army under Julius Caesar defeated the Helvetii – a group of Celtic tribes. After also conquering Rhaetia (modern Graubünden), the Romans gradually opened up the country, building the first roads over the major Alpine passes – most significantly the Grand-St-Bernard– and founding provincial towns at Nyon and Avenches, the last of which became the Roman capital, with more than fifty thousand inhabitants.

For more than two centuries under the Romans, Switzerland enjoyed peace and prosperity. Agriculture flourished, and the first vineyards were planted. 

1291 is traditionally regarded as being the founding year of the Confederation – this was when the three rural valley communities of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden pledged an oath of mutual support.
The death of the Holy Roman Emperor, King Rudolf I of Habsburg, coupled with the instability following his passing, most likely prompted the three founding cantons to enter into this pact of peace and mutual  assistance. Similar alliances had been made previously, but the Federal Charter of 1291 was the first to be documented in writing.
Legend has it that the three founding members met on the Rütli Meadow above Lake Lucerne to swear their mutual allegiance (“Rütli Oath”). Since then, the meadow has become the symbol of Swiss freedom and independence.  

The Reformation is the division of Western Christianity into Catholics and Protestants. It started in the 16th century. The most famous figure of the Reformation was Martin Luther of Germany. But Switzerland was also a stronghold of the Reformation, with Zwingli shaping Protestantism with his work in Zurich and John Calvin doing so in Geneva. Geneva was considered the Rome of Protestantism. Calvinism in particular spread throughout Europe and also to what is now the United States. The Reformation became potent political dynamite. In Europe and Switzerland, the split between Catholics and Protestants led to unrest and wars.

The Enlightenment period saw the emergence of a bourgeois public as well as numerous scholarly societies,
debating clubs, reading circles, salons and newspapers. Patriotic societies increasingly began to discuss political reform. The Helvetic Society, founded in 1762 had the aim of “establishing love and friendship, unity and concord between the Swiss”. The society united Protestant and Catholic Enlightenment thinkers from various Swiss cantons.
Under the banner of “Helvetism”, scholars from French-speaking Switzerland were incorporated into the Helvetic Society; until that point, the Confederation had been an exclusively German-speaking entity from a political perspective. However, French culture had been a major influence on the country since the 17th century, both with regard to courtly customs and Enlightenment ideas. The latter often questioned the status quo and the order and power of the state and the church, which had grown over time but were hardly
justifiable any more.

Although it had become a confederacy long before, Switzerland was not a true federal state until the 12th September 1848, when the Swiss constitution was signed into power. The move was a response to the Sonderbund War, a brief outburst of civil war between Catholics democrats and Protestant liberals. The Protestants thought that the people should be enlightened and educated in the rational spirit of Protestant ethics and that the creation of a unified state was of utmost importance.

A few months after the Sonderbund War was over, Switzerland transformed itself into the first representative democracy in Europe. The constitution of 1848 guaranteed equal rights, the separation of powers, and suffrage for men. The introduction of the franc, the right of establishment and customs exemption for the whole of Switzerland were measures that had a positive impact on economic progress.

In 1878 a complete revision of the Constitution leads to the introduction of the instrument of Direct Democracy, a major pillar of the Swiss political system. The end of the 19th Century also witnesses the rise of international tourism as well as the construction of the Gotthard and Simplon railway tunnels. 

The neutrality principle, to which Switzerland has subscribed since the Peace of Westphalia, established the basis for the country’s humanitarian commitment. In 1863, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) under the direction of the Swiss Henry Dunant was founded. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement began not long after Henry Dunant stumbled upon the catastrophic aftermath of the battle of Solferino, where 40,000 men had died or been gravely wounded. Dunant, stricken by the sight, returned to Geneva and founded the ICRC, beginning an international movement and setting Switzerland, and Geneva in particular, off on a path as host to some of the world’s main humanitarian agencies.