1.
Geneva
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Geneva is the second most populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic, the municipality has a population of 198,072, and the canton has 484,736 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genève had 946,000 inhabitants in 212 communities in both Switzerland and France, within Swiss territory, the commuter area named Métropole lémanique contains a population of 1.25 million. This area is essentially spread east from Geneva towards the Riviera area and north-east towards Yverdon-les-Bains, Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, Geneva was ranked as the worlds ninth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of Frankfurt, and third in Europe behind London and Zürich. A2009 survey by Mercer found that Geneva has the third-highest quality of life of any city in the world, the city has been referred to as the worlds most compact metropolis and the Peace Capital. In 2009 and 2011, Geneva was ranked as, respectively, the city was mentioned in Latin texts, by Caesar, with the spelling Genava, probably from a Celtic toponym *genawa- from the stem *genu-, in the sense of a bending river or estuary. The medieval county of Geneva in Middle Latin was known as pagus major Genevensis or Comitatus Genevensis, the name takes various forms in modern languages, Geneva /dʒᵻˈniːvə/ in English, French, Genève, German, Genf, Italian, Ginevra, and Romansh, Genevra. The city in origin shares its name, *genawa estuary, with the Italian port city of Genoa, Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe, when the Romans took it in 121 BC. It became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, and acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the bishopric of Vienne in the 4th. In the Middle Ages, Geneva was ruled by a count under the Holy Roman Empire until the late 14th century, around this time the House of Savoy came to dominate the city. In the 15th century, a republican government emerged with the creation of the Grand Council. In 1541, with Protestantism in the ascendancy, John Calvin, by the 18th century, however, Geneva had come under the influence of Catholic France, which cultivated the city as its own. France also tended to be at odds with the ordinary townsfolk, in 1798, revolutionary France under the Directory annexed Geneva. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, on 1 June 1814, in 1907, the separation of Church and State was adopted. Geneva flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the seat of international organizations. Geneva is located at 46°12 North, 6°09 East, at the end of Lake Geneva. It is surrounded by two chains, the Alps and the Jura
2.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
3.
Sorbonne
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The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which was the historical house of the former University of Paris. The name is derived from the Collège de Sorbonne, initiated during 1257 by the eponymous Robert de Sorbon as one of the first significant colleges of the medieval University of Paris. The university predates the college by about a century, and minor colleges had been founded already during the late 12th century, during the 16th century, the Sorbonne became involved with the intellectual struggle between Catholics and Protestants. The Collège de Sorbonne was suppressed during the French Revolution, reopened by Napoleon during 1808 and this was only one of the many colleges of the University of Paris that existed until the French revolution. After months of conflicts between students and authorities at the University of Paris at Nanterre, the administration closed that university on May 2,1968. Students at the Sorbonne campus in Paris met on May 3 to protest against the closure and the threatened expulsion of several students at Nanterre. More than 20,000 students, teachers and other endorsers marched towards the Sorbonne, still sealed off by the police, who charged, wielding their batons, as soon as the marchers approached. While the crowd dispersed, some began to make out of whatever was at hand, while others threw paving stones. The police then responded with tear gas and charged the crowd again, may 10 marked the Night of Barricades, where students used cars, wood, and cobblestones to barricade the streets of the Latin Quarter. Brutal street fighting ensued between students and riot police, most notably on Rue Gay-Lussac, early the next morning, as the fighting disbanded, Daniel Cohn-Bendit sent out a radio broadcast calling for a general strike. On Monday,13 May, more than one million workers went on strike, negotiations ended, and students returned to their campuses after a false report that the government had agreed to reopen them, only to discover police still occupying the schools. When the Sorbonne reopened, students occupied it and declared it an autonomous Peoples University, during 1970, the University of Paris was divided into thirteen universities, managed by a common rectorate, the Chancellerie des Universités de Paris, with offices in the Sorbonne. The building also houses the École Nationale des Chartes, the École pratique des hautes études, the Cours de Civilisation Française de la Sorbonne, nowadays, the use of the name refers more often to Panthéon-Sorbonne University for French public especially students in France. But, all Parisian universities like to refer as their ancestor, some alliances of universities use that name, like Sorbonne University. Listing of the works of Alexandre Falguière List of works by Henri Chapu La Sorbonne
4.
Dreyfus affair
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The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. The affair is often seen as a modern and universal symbol of injustice, the major role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the lasting social conflict. The scandal began in December 1894, with the conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. After high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterházy after a trial lasting two days. The Army then accused Dreyfus with additional charges based on falsified documents, activists put pressure on the government to reopen the case. In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial, the new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was given a pardon and set free. Eventually all the accusations against Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless, in 1906 Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army. He served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, the affair from 1894 to 1906 divided France deeply and lastingly into two opposing camps, the pro-Army, mostly Catholic anti-Dreyfusards and the anticlerical, pro-republican Dreyfusards. It embittered French politics and encouraged radicalization, the museum created an online platform in 2006 dedicated to the Dreyfus Affair, giving the public access to these documents. After a closed trial, he was guilty of treason. He was deported to Devils Island, at that time, the opinion of the French political class was unanimously unfavourable towards Dreyfus. Certain of the injustice of the sentence, the family of the Captain, through his brother Mathieu, meanwhile Colonel Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage, found evidence in March 1896 indicating that the real traitor was Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterházy. The General Staff, however, refused to reconsider its judgment, in July 1897 his family contacted the President of the Senate Auguste Scheurer-Kestner to draw attention to the tenuousness of the evidence against Dreyfus. Scheurer-Kestner reported three months later that he was convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus and also persuaded Georges Clemenceau, in the same month, Mathieu Dreyfus complained to the Ministry of War against Walsin-Esterházy. A Dreyfusard declaration that rallied many intellectuals to Dreyfus cause, France became increasingly divided over the case, and the issue continued to be hotly debated until the end of the century. Antisemitic riots erupted in more than twenty French cities, There were several deaths in Algiers. The Republic was shaken, which prompted a sense that the Dreyfus Affair had to be resolved to restore calm, despite increasingly robust evidence to the contrary, Dreyfus was convicted again and sentenced to ten years of hard labour, though the sentence was commuted due to extenuating circumstances. Exhausted by his deportation for four years, Dreyfus accepted the presidential pardon granted by President Émile Loubet
5.
George Enescu
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George Enescu, known in France as Georges Enesco, was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor, and teacher. He is regarded by many as Romanias most important musician, Enescu was born in Romania, in the village of Liveni, in Dorohoi County at the time, today Botoşani County. He showed musical talent from early in his childhood, a child prodigy, Enescu began experimenting with composing at an early age. Several, mostly very short pieces survive, all of them for violin, the earliest work of significant length bears the title Pămînt românesc, and is inscribed opus for piano and violin by George Enescu, Romanian composer, aged five years and a quarter. Shortly thereafter, his father presented him to the professor and composer Eduard Caudella. On 5 October 1888, at the age of seven, he became the youngest student ever admitted to the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied with Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr. Robert Fuchs, and Sigismund Bachrich. He was the person ever admitted to this university by a dispensation of age, after only Fritz Kreisler. In 1891, the ten-year-old Enescu gave a concert at the Court of Vienna. Joseph Hellmesberger, Sr. one of his teachers and the director of the Vienna Conservatory, hosted Enescu at his home and he graduated before his 13th birthday, earning the silver medal. In his Viennese concerts young Enescu played works by Brahms, Sarasate, in 1895 he went to Paris to continue his studies. He studied violin with Martin Pierre Marsick, harmony with André Gedalge, Enescu then studied from 1895 to 1899 at the Conservatoire de Paris. André Gedalge said that he was the one who truly had ideas. On 6 February 1898, at the age of only 16, George Enescu presented in Paris his first mature work, Poema Română, played by the Colonne Orchestra and conducted by Édouard Colonne. Many of Enescus works were influenced by Romanian folk music, his most popular compositions being the two Romanian Rhapsodies, the opera Œdipe, and the suites for orchestra and he also wrote five symphonies, a symphonic poem Vox maris, and much chamber music. A young Ravi Shankar recalled in the 1960s how Enescu, who had developed a deep interest in Oriental music, rehearsed with Shankars brother Uday Shankar and his musicians. Around the same time, Enescu took the young Yehudi Menuhin to the Colonial Exhibition in Paris and it was in America, in the 1920s, that Enescu was first persuaded to make recordings as a violinist. He also appeared as a conductor with many American orchestras, in 1932, Enescu was elected a titular member of the Romanian Academy. In 1935, he conducted the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris and Yehudi Menuhin in Mozarts Violin Concerto No.3 in G major and he also conducted the New York Philharmonic between 1937 and 1938
6.
Ernest Bloch
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Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer. Bloch was born in Geneva on July 24,1880 to Jewish parents and he began playing the violin at age 9. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. He then travelled around Europe, moving to Germany, on to Paris in 1903 and back to Geneva before settling in the United States in 1916, taking American citizenship in 1924. He held several teaching appointments in the U. S. with George Antheil, Frederick Jacobi, Quincy Porter, Bernard Rogers, see, List of music students by teacher, A to B#Ernest Bloch. In 1917 Bloch became the first teacher of composition at Mannes School of Music, in December 1920 he was appointed the first Musical Director of the newly formed Cleveland Institute of Music, a post he held until 1925. Following this he was director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music until 1930, in 1941, Bloch moved to the small coastal community of Agate Beach, Oregon and lived there the rest of his life. He taught and lectured at the University of California, Berkeley until 1952 and he died on July 15,1959 in Portland, Oregon, of cancer at the age of 78. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered near his home in Agate Beach, the Bloch Memorial has been moved from near his house in Agate Beach to a more prominent location at the Newport Performing Arts Center in Newport, Oregon. Ivan, born in 1905, became an engineer with the Bonneville Power Administration in Portland, suzanne Bloch, born in 1907, was a musician particularly interested in Renaissance music who taught harpsichord, lute and composition at the Juilliard School in New York. Many of his works - as can be seen from their Hebrew-inspired titles - also draw heavily on his Jewish heritage. The Western Jewish History Center, of the Judah L. Magnes Museum, in Berkeley, Blochs photography was discovered by Eric B. Johnson in 1970. With the encouragement of Blochs children, Johnson edited and printed hundreds of his photographs which can be viewed at http, some of the pictures that Bloch took in his Swiss residence are visible here. The snapshots have been donated to the Archivio audiovisivo di Capriasca e Val Colla by the Associazione ricerche musicali nella Svizzera italiana, Ernest Bloch, Composer in Natures University by Nancy Steinberg. Oregon Coastal Council for the Arts, the Life and Music of Ernest Bloch. Thesis, San José State University, 1976), San Jose State University, Department of Music 1976. Blochs photography was discovered by Eric B. Johnson in 1970, Johnson researched, edited and printed many of Blochs photographs. 40 of these prints from Blochs negatives are now in the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson AZ along with the collection of his negatives
7.
Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
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The encyclopedia is published by a foundation under the patronage of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Swiss Historical Society and is financed by national research grants. Besides a staff of 35 at the offices, the contributors include 100 academic advisors,2500 historians and 100 translators. The encyclopedia is being edited simultaneously in three languages of Switzerland, German, French and Italian. The first of 13 volumes was published in 2002, the last volume was published in 2014. The 36,000 headings are grouped in, Biographies Articles on families and it makes accessible, for free, all articles ready for publication in print, but no illustrations. It also lists all 36,000 topics that are to be covered, lexicon Istoric Retic is a two volume version with a selection of articles published in Romansh. It includes articles not available in the other languages, the first volume was published in 2010, the second in 2012. An on-line version is also available
