I've been thinking about how privileged of a life we live, I mean we own/mortgage three properties with >350 acres of land, are never in need for food or clothing, and can purchase items that middle class people of past times could only dream of having, and I assume the majority of people now a day have the ability to do the same. Of course the middle class doesn't have the status that royalty would have in medieval times, but is our quality of life comparable to royalty of medieval times?

Rape by Red army soldiers is a well-known fact. However, rape by soldiers of other countries that fought against Germany isn’t widely discussed.

Miriam Gebhardt in her book “When the soldiers came” claims that the US soldiers raped up to 190,000 soldiers. How authentic and truthful is this information? If not what are the estimated numbers?

I'm a graduate student in philosophy writing a thesis on Nietzsche's early works on education (Schopenhauer as Educator and On the Future of Our Educational Institutions), and I'm trying to find historical accounts of what universities in the German speaking lands were like before his time.

I've already found the following:

• A Romantic Education: The Concept of Bildung in Early German Romanticism
• A History of the University in Europe: Universities in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (1800-1945)

But besides those, I'm having a difficult time figuring out what's worth reading and what isn't. Any help narrowing the field would be immensely appreciated.

Was just appreciating the Irish countryside & imaged what it looks like from a satellite. How did people first react to these images?

In the 1980's, were the LAPD actually using APCs as battering rams to knock in people's front doors when suspected of being drug houses as shown in the film? When I saw this part of the film, it seemed a bit far-fetched to me. I know that no-knock warrants have been a thing for a while, but to use such excessive force before even announcing their presence seems a bit - as I said - far-fetched.

How realistic is this? Did these types of things actually occur in the anti-drug hysteria of the 1980s?

My last name is Williams. What does this tell about my family's history? Am I related to the Welsh family Williams? Are people with the same last names related in any way?

Thank you for your responses. Family history is something I'm really curious about.

Many pirates from the cold and wet places in Europe would have been very light skinned indeed just like any number of young lads wandering around in places like the UK right now. When on holiday, even in close by Spain, some of us fry without factor 30 so how did pirates get on in even hotter places without sunscreen? Didn't ginger john who probably never left 1700's Bristol have an awful time when he found himself at the equator - Or did they have ways of preventing skin damage?

I've taken a few general history courses (basically world history from ancient times to world war 2 over three courses) which was overly Western/Mesopotamia/Chinese focused so I got the bare minimum about the peoples in the Americas (and Africa) and I'm trying to fill in the gaps starting with mesoamerica.

In many depictions of the crusades kings (and oftentimes other nobles) are depicted wearing crowns on their heads. I was wondering if this was pure symbolism or did they actually wore them while riding or even in a battle?

And on a second note: would the crowns be made of gold or is it more likely that is was painted iron or copper? I was thinking it might be the latter because things could get lost if you're riding through the deserts for months.

While early Islam does seem to have several significant safeguards for female rights, you also have stories of women like his wife Khadijah, who was a business owner and initially employed Muhammed. Did Islam make things better or worse for women in the region in the short-term?

I know that "The Second Empire" used the American preoccupation in its civil war as a handy excuse to bypass the diplomatic barrier to the Americas erected by Monroe and involve itself in Mexico (Viva Mexico) and was contracted by the Confederacy to construct at least one ironclad ship (which interestingly enough found it's way to Japan and served as the "Kotetsu" in the Boshin War of 1868-69) but other than these attempts to profit indirectly from the war, (as any good neutral would do, an American tradition as well) was there any contemplation in the court of Napoleon III of taking a side more directly? were there embargoes on the Union, for example or was, for example the construction of the "Sphinx"/"Kotetsu" a private enterprise the government did not concern it's self with? And what of the opinion's of the French People? What did they think of the war for Liberte, and Egalite fought over by by Freres?

It blows my mind that this was kept a secret for so long. I realize communication technology was much slower, but it seems amazing to me that not a single soul told someone from another country. No one was bribed, tortured, persuaded, intimidated, or accidentally revealed the secret. Every person across multiple generations, governments, personalities, etc., kept their mouth shut.

How is this possible? I can't believe how little I've been able to find on this. How much would the average Chinese person be aware of the silk-making process? Were silk-weavers kept under constant guard? Was there ever a time when the secret became close to being revealed? Why didn't other countries capture a silk-weaver and torture the secret out of them? Or send spies to discover the secret? Or bribe someone for the information? It just boggles my mind that for over 3,000 years this was kept secret.