My question is broadly about the prevalence of western media in East Germany, and how the state really reacted to its citizens consuming officially disapproved media, and if there is some current research about this.

I am using "Star Wars" as the entry point to this question. Being grown up myself in the far west of Germany in the 1970s/1980s, I very well remember how much of a sensation the "Krieg der Sterne" movie stirred. It was prominently reviewed in television, even one of the most popular game shows had a special issue where an actor in a C-3PO costume was reading the questions for the contestants. As west german television was widely watched in East Germany, most people there would have known about this ground-breaking space opera movie that everybody in the western world want to see.

Now more than 30 years after the fall of the wall, there are mostly anecdotal, contradictory, and often romanticizing stories floating around about how the usage of western media in the GDR really was. One urban legend says that children were asked by their teacher how the clock in the evening news looked like (west german news 'Tagesschau' had a different one than the east german 'Aktuelle Kamera'), and when a child gave the wrong answer, it was added to the Stasi records, and could bring its parents into trouble.

Between people on the one extreme who are glorifying the GDR, and the other side where this place is painted as a schizophrenical oppressive dictatorship where you had to be paranoid all the time, I'm looking for reliable information how it really was. Is there reliable historical research going on about this? It is basically these questions:

• How prevalent was western media in the GDR? Not only TV, but also movies (as illegal copies, how? super-8? VHS?) Books, magazines etc.

• What was really the official stance on citizens that were consuming western media? Was it just disapproved, or could one get into real trouble? Could our hypothetical twentysomething be denied entry to university just for expressing the desire to see a space opera movie, when a nearby stasi informer was eavesdropping?

• Were there privileged people who actually had more easy access to western media?

The Cambodian genocide came to an end after the Vietnamese victory following invasion. But was the genocide one of the main reasons for invasion, or was it simply because Pol Pot was practicing the wrong "brand" of communism? Cambodians were fleeing the Khmer Rouge into Vietnam, so surely they must have known the massacres were taking place.

My understanding of the theory is that Germanic speakers migrating into Denmark(ish) encountered non-Indo-Europeans, and that Proto-Germanic essentially was a creole of a Germanic language and the language of these people.

In medieval ages, how much was peasent levies actually used and how important was they for the armies at the time?

If you look at Malaysia's territory,there is the Western part of Malaysia where the capital is located and also borders Thailand and Singapore. Then theres the Eastern side that is seperated by sea that borders Indonesia and Brunei

The same thing goes to the U.S,theres the mainland america where all tge states are...and then theres Alaska just popping out

Any history geeks here that knows the reason behind this wierd shape of Malaysia?

We all know the story about the European conquest of the Americas. My question more revolves around the technological advantage the Europeans had. Could they have conquered the americas without germs? The conquistadors were seriously outnumbered and their gunpowder and horses were limited.

I vaguely remember a mention in the History of Rome Podcast where Mike Duncan said a reformer put curses or hexes into a law to deter others from attempting to repeal them in the future. I'm not sure if it was the Gracchi land reforms, Caesar, or someone else, or if it was a common tactic over the years. Does anyone have any evidence of this happening or, short of that, do you remember which episode mentioned it?

When I read about a war (any war for example) both sides write horrible things about the other side and both of them act like the victim and the hero

I know we aren't in a fantasy novel and anyone can do bad things and good things in the war time but sometimes I read a stories that touch some red lines to me and to my believes

I saw the resources listed on the wiki, but unsure how reliable they are. Thanks!

I've been watching Band of Brothers and Fury and one thing that has stood out from both is the desire for/use of German weapon trophies. For instance, Brad Pitt's character makes use of StG 44. How common was it for allied soldiers to come home with German weaponry or at least use it in the field like Pitt's tank commander does?

I wonder, when did water faucets become accessible in every household? I'm curious to see if it was common to have running water in the mid 1800's. If not, did people get water from the local village well, and how did they access water in big cities?

I'm wondering about plumbing mostly in western countries at that time, but I would love to hear what you know about other sides of the world!

It seems to me like this was the classical era equivalent of a water mill, and while my understanding is that it was only used for grain, I can't imagine how it never developed into the textile mills we started to see in the late Renaissance period.

If hospitals were terrible, did care providers know they were terrible? Or were care providers doing the best they could with practice recognized by the public then and now as terrible (in the same way that chemo and radio therapy today are pretty horrific, but they're often the best we have for certain cancers)? Or a little of both?

On the subject of differences between public and professional perspectives, how much did they differ? Was the public opinion of institutions overwhelmingly negative while the institutional opinion was overwhelmingly positive? Or did things vary more? Is my understanding that actual mass de-institutionalization didn't occur until much after this era correct?

Finally, the spectre of the punitive lobotomy pops up several times in literature and film during this period (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Planet of the Apes). Was phenomenon a frequent fear of patients within the institutional setting? What about other punitive "treatments" using, say, electroshock therapy? Can we detect these patient fears in sources? What would be our sources if we wanted to study them? I assume given that many of the people who would be subject to punitive medical treatment would fall under multiple categories of vulnerable that we might not have much to go on. How often did this sort of thing occur if at all?

Thanks!

Hello!

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I am working on an art project based on the Battle of Agincourt and I would like to have a historian that is familiar with the battle or the Hundred Years' War take a look at it and offer some guidance on how to make the piece more accurate. This shouldn't be too time-intensive.

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Thank you for your time. Feel free to reach out to me here or in dms.

why didnt european castles have banked walls backed up by earth like japanese ones? this would make castles so much stronger, as the walls wouldnt ever get destroyed by siege equipment.

Such as the Arab invasions of the Sassanid empire, Byzantine Syria, Egypt and North Africa.

Hello everyone. Does anyone have any good book recommendations on Ceausescu's Romania?

I understand the Zionism movement really took off in the 19th Century but are there any examples of this in the Medieval period? Given there are modern Christian movements that believe the Jews should live in Israel were there any movements like this that had any sway or influence for example during the Crusades?

As I understand it, during this time Japan was loosely controlled by Toyotomi Hideyoshi; but his Hashiba clan didn't invade Joseon Korea as he had other clans do that. I check the list of combatants on the Imjin War's Wikipedia page and there are a lot for the Japanese, as I assume most of these were token examples of participation so they could get a slice of the pie.

So which clans were the one or two or three whom provided the majority of the invasion force for Korea (under the direction of the Hashiba)? Was it the Shimazu? The Mori? The Ottomo? The Chosokabe? Etc.

I have recently read Njals Saga and have delved a little into Arthurian legends. I'm curious about the relationship the early Christian scribes (monks) had to the pagan stories they put to paper. Obviously they felt these stories were of importance. Was that importance historical or cultural or both or something else? I'm also curious as to the attitude of the early Christians to the older stories, such as those in the Mabinogion, or the Icelandic sagas. Did they perhaps feel sad at the retreat of those old ways and could that be reflected at times in their retelling of these stories? While reading certain works (Njals Saga in particular) a real respect for the old gods, if only a recognition of their perceived power, though ultimately Christ is seen as the most powerful.. I'm not a scholar or historian so I'm interested to know if anyone has wrote on this or has insight. Perhaps a historian could never answer that question, but I am interested in any response.