Historical Dictionary of Switzerland — Wikipedia

Claims

1. hds-1983-commission
   In 1983 the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences commissioned Carl Pfaff (University of Fribourg) and Alain Dubois (University of Lausanne) to initiate the HDS project, which the Swiss Historical Society soon supported.
2. hds-1987-funding
   In 1987 the Federal Assembly approved funding for the HDS as part of the celebrations marking the 700th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation; the Foundation Historical Dictionary of Switzerland was created the following year.
3. hds-1998-online-launch
   On September 4, 1998, the first 8,000 articles of the online edition were presented to the media in Berne in three languages; the Foundation Board had decided in autumn 1997 to launch the website before the first print volume.
4. hds-2002-first-volume
   The first print volume was presented on October 31, 2002, simultaneously in German (published by Schwabe), French (Gilles Attinger, Hauterive), and Italian (Armando Dadò, Locarno) at a ceremony at the Swiss National Library.
5. hds-2017-transfer
   On January 1, 2017, the HDS Foundation completed its work and passed responsibility to the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (ASSH).
6. hds-article-categories
   The 36,000 articles fall into four categories: biographies (35%), families and genealogy (10%), geography including communes and cantons (roughly 30%), and thematic articles on institutions, events, and historical phenomena (25%).
7. hds-dhbs-predecessor
   The DHBS (Dictionnaire historique et biographique de la Suisse), the predecessor dictionary published in seven volumes between 1921 and 1934, was a financial failure, eventually causing the bankruptcy of its publishing company.
8. hds-lir
   A reduced Romansh edition, the Lexicon istoric retic (LIR), was published alongside the main dictionary and constitutes the first specialist historical dictionary in Rhaeto-Romance Switzerland.
9. hds-overview
   The HDS is an encyclopedia of Swiss history available in German, French, and Italian, completed in 2014 with around 36,000 articles in thirteen print volumes.
10. hds-periodization
    10% of articles cover the Palaeolithic to the Early Middle Ages, while 20% cover the period from World War I to the end of the 20th century.
11. hds-staff
    The editorial staff comprised roughly 40 foundation employees in Berne, Bellinzona, and Chur, plus approximately 2,500 freelance authors, 100 advisors at Swiss and foreign universities, and 75 translators. Marco Jorio led the organization from 1988 to 2014.
12. hls-cc-bysa-license
    All article text produced for the HLS is published under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license, allowing free reuse with attribution and share-alike conditions. Rights to other content (images, film, audio) remain with their respective holders.