Important dates in the history of landlocked European country
1291 Representatives of the three founding cantons of the nation - Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden - gather on the Ruuti meadow, overlooking Lake Lucerne, and swear allegiance.
1648 The Peace of Westphalia gives legal recognition to Switzerland's neutrality and independence.
1798 Following the French Revolution, revolutionary forces invade the Swiss federation.
1815 With the close of the Napoleonic era, the Congress of Vienna redraws the map of continental Europe, Valais, Neuchatel and Geneva are incorporated into Switzerland's frontiers.
1848 A new Swiss constitution is drafted following a three-week civil war between cantons of the Protestant north and the Catholic south. The constitution seeks to ensure harmony between religious and linguistic groups, and creates a two-chamber federal parliament.
1863 The Red Cross is founded and the first Geneva Convention is adopted a year later to govern the treatment of combatants and civilians in wartime.
