The reindexing lasted more than 20 hours on my system.
But no problem, because I am now able to snoop into the very beginning.
Blocks #1,2,3,etc. are really simple and it's easy to understand the process.

It looks like the first (rough guess) 50-60.000 blocks are mainly single transactions.
The ones I have checked were transferring constantly 50 BTC.
First after 50.000 I have detected the first block with multiple transactions inside.
And then also the transferred values change.

But it's really great to see this history, going back to the very beginning.

@DannyHamilton
Thank you for verbose explanation. Very helpful to dig deeper into the details.
I've just started reindexing of the database.
Will last several hours, but no problem - I want to see the gory details.

@knightdk
Thank you for your confirmation of the bitcoin.conf entry. It did the trick.

Thank you for your quick reply. That raises the curtain of ignorance.

One small other question: Is there any way to show the whole block-chain? Out of pure curiousity.

I'm new within the Bitcoin realm.
I've installed Bitcoin-core (QT version 0.12.1.0) on my Ubuntu 16.04 box.
Download of the block-chain lasted roughly 20 hours.
Bitcoin-qt confirms "Up to date. Processed 412540 blocks of transaction history"
I have setup an encrypted wallet.

And here's my questions:
Why do I do not see any entry in the "Transactions" tab?
Are only my own transactions shown?
How can I see the block-chain transactions?

Many thanks in advance for these, I admit, dumb questions. But I did not find any answers by Mama Google.