So from the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of the barbaric kingdoms, up until around 1500, what are the major changes we see in the conceptions of the idea of "states"? Are there things we can accurately describe as "states" in medieval times?

Any Americans or Brits? How were they treated by the Germans? Were any of them caught and tried for treason?

Since flags are tools for identification, at /r/vexillology one of the common criteria for calling a flag bad is if it looks too much like an existing flag. I was wondering; have poorly designed flags or too similar flags ever caused significant issues?

In video games and war movies, you often see glider pilots, and in Vietnam movies helicopter pilots, be wiped out in pretty much every combat mission, with a mortality of close to 100%.

Was the mortality rate really this high, or is this dramatic embellishment? Seems like an awful deterrent.

I am curious about how the draft worked in America say during Vietnam? When you were drafted where you given the asvab or a similar test to see what jobs were best for you? Or was it you get drafted into branch X with MOS X and that's that?

And would people who didn't get drafted but volunteered get to choice there branch and MOS?

I find it really mind-boggling. At the end of the Hellenistic era, ~50-100 A.D. there were people like Hero of Alexandria who invented the steam engine. The scholars there were really close to an industrial revolution, so to speak. The decline of the Roman Empire brought this to a halt, but the Eastern Roman Empire, aka Byzantine Empire never lost access to the writings of all the wise ancient Greeks. They had the books stored in monasteries (and studied, translated, and diligently copied by hand generation after generation) all along, for 1000 years, and yet it seems that they didn't do much else with it.

When the Arabs discovered the ancient Greek texts, they had their Golden Age, which brought important contributions to Algebra, Astronomy, Alchemy, just to name a few. When Western Europeans got access to those texts, they had the Renaissance. I am kinda generalizing here, and I would be surprised myself if the Greek texts were the only reason for those two movements. But my question stands regardless: I don't think there is another example in world history, of a 1000 year old culture, prosperous more or less, with access to education and resources like that, that didn't do more science.

I'm wondering why that is.

PS This is my first reddit post. I did read the faq and the r/askhistorians rules, and everything should be OK. Sorry if I missed something :)

Edit: I changed some phrasing and added couple of elements from a reply of mine to a comment, to improve clarity.

After the Ottomans conquered the Byzantine Empire, how did the people of the conquered territory identify themselves culturally/nationally? Did people there have a strong Roman/Byzantine identity before? If it went away, how long did the transition period take?

I visited the YouTube channel by Aemilius Paulus and I realy love some of the songs - I am helping with a large production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and we would like to have live performers playing this kind of music - specifically liked track 2 and 4 - is it possible to purchase the sheet music in order play this music in house? Please let me know what I need to do or who I should contact? Thank you very much! - Stephanie

One of the things I've learned while lurking in this sub is to not think that history had to end up the way it did. So this got me thinking about the dismantling of the Sovet block in Eastern Europe. It is usually narrated as a chain of events that eventually lead to German reunification and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Was it really like that? Or was there ever a chance that two (more or less) democratic Germanies could have coexisted on friendly terms? As the title implies, I'm mostly interested in this from the East German perspective, i.e. was there ever a significant call for an independent and democratic DDR?

P.S. I know this is close to being a "what if" question, but I didn't want to step into hypothetical territory, I'm just curious if the idea was ever seriously considered.

I have never been sure.

I'm aware there was decent support for socialism, especially in the British working classes in Sheffield and Birmingham, and as many of the workers bore the brunt of the war costs I was wondering if it was ever realistic that a western government, such as that of Britain, France, Belgium, or the Weimar Republic could be toppled by Communists.

As for a revolution I mean any rebellion that would get rid of the Government at the time and replace it with a Communist one.

I have a couple of questions about this siege and wondering if anyone here could help. First, Are there any records of the people who fought there, and some key dates? What sort of soldiers would have been there, e.g Knights, Templars, or just basic footmen? What sort of siege machines did John use, and who would have made up his army? Thanks, Alex.

I have read that the consensus regarding colonialism is that it was a net drain on European powers. Which colonies were actually net profitable to them over a long period? Did this change over time (e.g. the Caribbean during and after slavery)?