The Swiss are famously neutral and have been neutral longer than any other European nation (not counting micronations like Vatican City). But a year ago that wasn't the case.

In the early 1500s Switzerland had neutrality imposed upon them because the Swiss were vicious bastards when it came to warfare and everyone wanted to keep them bottled up in Switzerland. So a 500 year run of neutrality right?

Not so fast. Napoleon conquered Switzerland at the height of his Continental Empire and forced them into his Grand Army. It wasn't until 1815 in one of the dozen or so Treaties of Paris that it regained neutrality. This time, it should be noted, Switzerland went with armed neutrality, which is why it survived WWII intact.

Until last year Sweden was the European country that enjoyed the longest run of neutrality. In the not too creatively named "The Policy of 1812" Sweden, which had lost a third of its country already in the Napoleonic wars, declared its steadfast neutrality. And they would stick to that policy for 210 years until the Russo-Ukrainian War nudged them into NATO.

If you want to be real nit picky though... the Swiss have violated their own policy of neutrality three times in just the last 50 years. All three times invading their much smaller (and utterly dependent) neighbor Lichtenstein. Granted, two of those times were troops on training missions getting lost and crossing the Lichtenstein border and the other was an artillery training mission accidentally hitting a forest a kilometer across the border.

Lichtenstein, a country that dissolved its army in 1865, was a good sport about all three incidents, though they did make the Swiss pay out the wazoo to repair the area bombarded.