87 Neutral Facts About the Land of Chocolates – Switzerland

There is a second "Mona Lisa" painting held in a secret vault in Switzerland also thought to have been painted by Leonardo DaVinci that shows a much younger version of the female subject.

2. In Switzerland, a group of citizens may challenge a law passed by Parliament if they gather 50,000 signatures against the law within 100 days. A national vote is scheduled where voters decide by a simple majority whether to accept or reject the law.

3. Switzerland banned nearly all forms of motor-racing after the tragic 1955 Le Mans disaster, where fragments of a crashed car flew into the stands, killing 83 spectators, the most deadly accident in motorsport history. Despite numerous attempts to lift it, the ban is still in place to this day.

4. Switzerland shot down both Allied and Axis aircraft during World War 2.

5. Switzerland is rigged with over 3000 demolition points to collapse bridges and create bomb shelters in event of an attack.

Average teacher salary in Switzerland in 2010 was $112,000 per year.

7. Men in Switzerland are required to keep the firearms they are issued during military service at home after they leave the military so as to prevent home break-ins and have the countries men ready to mobilize in the event of a threat.

8. A rooster in the Basel city of Switzerland was sentenced to burn at the stake for committing the heinous and unnatural crime of laying an egg.

9. There is a 500-year-old statue of a man eating a sack of babies in Bern, Switzerland, and nobody is sure why.

10. Not only is assisted suicide legal in Switzerland, the law does not require a physician to be involved and the recipient doesn't have to be a Swiss national.

Paul Hogan (the actor of "Crocodile Dundee") lost $32 million because when he wanted to hide his money in offshore tax havens his tax adviser duped him. His money lies untouched in Switzerland since the 1980s.

12. Switzerland swore eternal neutrality in 1515 after losing the Battle of Marignano.

13. Kim Jong Un was caught with a bondage pornography magazine when he was in school in Switzerland.

14. Switzerland has no official capital city.

15. There has been ongoing research in Switzerland into using LSD to alleviate anxiety for terminally ill cancer patients coping with their impending deaths, with preliminary results from the study being deemed "promising".

Liechtenstein a nation smaller than the size of Washington D.C. has been accidentally invaded three times in the past thirty years by their neighbor Switzerland.

17. There is a statue of Freddie Mercury overlooking Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

18. One of the political parties in Switzerland is called the 'Anti-Powerpoint Party'. Its singular aim is to prohibit the use of Powerpoint in office presentations.

19. Switzerland has no single Head of State and instead has a seven-member executive council which serves as the Swiss collective head of state.

20. Switzerland has more millionaires than recipients of social assistance.

Switzerland is abbreviated to ‘CH’ because of its Latin name, ‘Confoederatio Helvetica.’ Latin is also still used on stamps and coins

22. Canada has a national park that is larger than Switzerland.

23. Women didn't have the right to vote in one region of Switzerland until 1991. Two women had to file a lawsuit in Swiss Federal Court to gain voting rights in Appenzell Innerrhoden.

24. Switzerland has the most expensive Big Mac in the world at $6.82 (in 2018), while in Venezuela, the country with the cheapest, it only costs $0.67.

25. Marcel Marceau was part of the French Resistance, where he saved children from going to concentration camps, and a Liason officer to Patton's army. He first started miming as a way of keeping children quiet as they were escaping to neutral Switzerland.