title: Rooster Teeth

text: Halfway through season four, Burns announced the cancellation of "Rooster Teeth Shorts" for several new series. However, on April 1, 2013, Rooster Teeth announced "Rooster Teeth Shorts" would return with a fifth season, on the same day, the season premiere episode "Reunion" was released and marked the tenth anniversary of the company.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On August 22, 2013, Rooster Teeth released six 6-second mini-episodes exclusively through the video sharing service Vine. Six more were published on September 13, 2013. The third set was released on October 11, 2013, followed by a fourth set on November 8, 2013.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: "Immersion" is a series in which Burnie Burns and Gus Sorola (Griffon Ramsey in the first season) test the concepts of video games in real life, such as whether the heckling that sometimes occurs in multiplayer video games would negatively affect the performance of real soldiers. Burns joked in the Rooster Teeth podcast that the series started as an "elaborate way for [them] to do fun stuff and get paid for it." Geoff Ramsey and Gus Sorola were the test subjects throughout the first season. Gavin Free and Michael Jones served as the test subjects from the second season onwards. Various other Rooster Teeth employees have served as test subjects in certain episodes including Miles Luna, Kerry Shawcross, Blaine Gibson and Chris Demaris.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: During PAX East in late March 2010, Rooster Teeth released a teaser trailer for a series with a pilot episode that tested how easy it would be to drive a car from a third-person perspective. Nothing was mentioned of "Immersion" until October 2010, when Burnie Burns stated during the company's podcast, "The Rooster Teeth Podcast", that production had begun on further episodes.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Soon after, on November 23, 2010, the company released pictures on Reddit of a door in their office turned into a safe-room door from the video game "Left 4 Dead" to build hype for the series' debut the following day. The post became the most popular post of the day on Reddit. Rooster Teeth re-released a tweaked pilot episode the following day to begin the weekly series, which concluded with its seventh episode on January 5, 2011.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: A new episode of "Immersion" premiered on June 17, 2011, after five months on hiatus. The episode's filming took place on May 29, 2011, during Rooster Teeth's convention, RTX, as well as 400 participants dressed as zombies. The episode shows Geoff Ramsey and Gus Sorola defending themselves from a horde of zombies.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On June 17 Burns stated during a panel at Supanova Sydney, that they would be producing a second season, and they were developing concepts. They also confirmed that Gavin Free and Michael Jones of Achievement Hunter would be joining the cast in the second season, replacing Sorola and Ramsey as the test subjects. In the Rooster Teeth Podcast, it was confirmed that the second season began production in 2013. Burns stated in an episode of the "Rooster Teeth Podcast" that several television stations were interested in picking up the series for its second season.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: During RTX 2015, Burns announced that there would be a third season of "Immersion". The third season premiered in November 2015. Airing on August 3, 2019, Burns, Free, and Jones did an episode of "Immersion" for Discovery channel's "Shark Week." Along with being shown a demonstration of mechanical shark jaws, it involved them riding a mechanical shark, surfing on the back of a shark-like boat, and ultimately ended with both of them diving with sharks with shark expert Luke Tipple. The episode is available to watch on the Discovery website.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: "The Slow Mo Guys" is a science and technology entertainment web series from Thame, England, United Kingdom created by Gavin Free, starring himself and Daniel Gruchy. The series consists of a wide variety of things filmed in extreme slow motion using a range of Vision Research Phantom high-speed cameras, capable of shooting over 1,500,000 frames per second. The series premiered on 15 October 2010. On 20 February 2013, Free confirmed that the series had been picked up by Rooster Teeth and that further episodes of the series would be released on Rooster Teeth's website, as well as the series' existing YouTube channel. A best of compilation was released by Rooster Teeth Productions for home video on 10 September 2013.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: At RTX 2012, 1,800 fans were used as extras for a scene in post-apocalypse short series called "Day 5", which initially followed a man fighting to stay awake after a virus spreads that causes anyone who falls asleep to die. The trailer premiered at RTX 2014. While the premise was kept the same, the overall story and characters were later changed drastically. In March 2016, the cast was announced, with filming starting that same month. The first episode premiered on June 19, 2016 on both Rooster Teeth's website and YouTube, though the rest of the series was released exclusively on Rooster Teeth's website for FIRST members, making it the company's first premium exclusive show. Its first season concluded on July 31, 2016. Showrunner Josh Flanagan held a Reddit AMA the following day, answering many fan questions about the show. In February 2017, a second season of the show was announced, along with a second season of "Camp Camp".


title: Rooster Teeth

text: "Million Dollars, But ..." is an ongoing series in which three Rooster Teeth employees or a special guest each come up with a typically difficult scenario—which the cast comically re-enact—as a condition for which they will be given a million dollars; for example, the person has to date Adolf Hitler for a year. The early episodes usually featured Burnie Burns, Gavin Free, and Barbara Dunkelman, but as time went on, the cast became more varied. The pilot episode premiered on May 21, 2015, with the series continuing on July 9, 2015. The series now features special episodes devoted to specific themes, such as animation, with all the scenarios revolving around animation. "Million Dollars, But ..." has developed a card game that had a very successful Kickstarter, reaching their goal of US$10,000 within 2 minutes and later surpassing $1 million. The card game was released in mid-June 2016.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: "On the Spot" is the name of the Rooster Teeth game show that involves members of the Rooster Teeth cast and crew, split into two teams of two people, playing various improvisational games to gain points awarded by the host Jon Risinger. The winning team is awarded a golden trophy that resembles Gustavo Sorola, affectionately called "The Golden Gus". Although promised to the winner, after being broken several times, the trophy now does not leave Risinger's desk. A frequent theme of the show is the chaotic humor; contestants will frequently attempt to annoy and antagonize Risinger, and to mock his show. The points are assigned arbitrarily and inconsistently based on the random whim of the host, as well as being assigned by the broadcast team that is running the show. In an effort to bring variety to the show, the next few seasons have been themed, with the first themed season being "On the Spot goes to Hell!", where Jon, his show, and his contestants go to hell because his show was too bad. The second themed season is "On the Spot: Lost in Time" with each episode being set in a different time period due to a break in the space-time continuum caused by Chris Demaris. The third themed season involves a "family friendly" version of the show titled "On the Spot: The Happy Room", where each episode has a learning subject such as weather or family which the game prompts are based on. The latest themed season, "On the Spot and Chill", has a TV show theme.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In 2014 a bi-weekly series premiered called "Happy Hour". The series chronicles the drunken adventures of Geoff Ramsey, Gavin Free, and Griffon Ramsey. This series ended on September 24, 2017.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Created to test elaborate social experiments, "Social Disorder" follows Chris Demarais and Aaron Marquis as they compete for points as a game show. The first episode, The Body Bag Experiment, debuted on September 15, 2014, in which Demarais and Marquis had to drag each other around in a body bag trying to get bystanders to help them out. Points were awarded for making up reasons as to what was in the bag or why they were dragging the bag in the first place.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Crunch Time is a web series that initially aired in September 2016. The original trailer was featured on The Nerdist's announcement article, and depicted university students creating a machine to allow them to enter other people's dreams. The show stars Samm Levine of "Freaks and Geeks" and "Inglourious Basterds" fame, as well as Good Neighbor's Nick Rutherford; also starring Jessy Hodges and Kirk C. Johnson, who starred in Rooster Teeth's first feature film, "Lazer Team." Supporting the main cast is comedian Brent Morin and "True Detective"'s Michael Hyatt as agents Hobbs and Mullins, respectively.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On Halloween 2012, a partnership between Rooster Teeth and Blip was announced, with the premiere of their new 10-episode, reality game competition series sponsored by GEICO. "The Gauntlet" followed gamers from around the United States competing in contests of skills, concentration, agility and stamina, inspired by reality competitions "Wipeout" and "The Voice". The first season was hosted by Ali Baker and Burnie Burns. Season two was hosted by Burns and Joel Heyman and began on September 7, 2013.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Starting in 2014, Rooster Teeth employees Miles Luna and Kyle Taylor started playing video games and recording the gameplay and facial camera footage to create a show originally called "Sponsor Play" and it was featured as part of the Sponsor Cut portion of the RT website, an incentive to become a sponsor for their production. This series was renamed to "Backwardz Compatible" in November 2016 along with the change of sponsorship format. The whole series features gameplay of "Fatal Frame, Resident Evil 7, Sonic Adventure 2, , Dark Souls III," and a few other titles.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On September 27, 2015, a sketch comedy show "RT-ES", or "Rooster Teeth Entertainment System", premiered for Rooster Teeth First members on roosterteeth.com. The show is produced in Los Angeles, California and is hosted and created by Colton Dunn. The show consists of Dunn giving interviews, talking about relevant topics, and showing many sketches throughout: it features comedy, music, and games.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In a Sponsor-Only video, Burnie Burns stated that "RT-ES" would be put on hiatus. Burns began by saying "occasionally we make some missteps," referring to "RT-ES". He elaborated by saying Rooster Teeth would be looking at all the audience feedback and apply it to the show in the future.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In mid-2006, Electronic Arts commissioned Rooster Teeth to direct commercials for their EA Sports brand of games, including "Madden NFL 07" and "NCAA Football 07", for broadcast on television. Rooster Teeth released some of this work on their website. In late November 2006, controversy arose over a "Madden NFL 07" commercial, when Indianapolis Colts tight end Dallas Clark complained about his depiction in the commercial. Hit and tackled multiple times in the advertisement by Philadelphia Eagles players, Clark stated, "I haven't seen the commercial, but I'm upset about it. It makes me look like a punk." In response, Rooster Teeth posted a director's cut, in which Clark plays and dominates every position.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: They have also made a trailer for a free to play PC game called "Loadout", developed by Austin-based Edge of Reality.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In February 2014, Burns confirmed that the company was going to launch a crowdfunding campaign for a feature film, as a way to offer more support options while gaining publicity.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In June 2014, an Indiegogo campaign for "Lazer Team" was launched. The fundraiser hit its $650,000 target within 11 hours and reached over $1.6 million two days later. The film was due for release in 2015. , Lazer Team is the second-most-funded film project on Indiegogo, raising just under $2.5 million.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Production for Lazer Team began on October 9, 2014. On February 21, 2015 the first official teaser trailer was released, and on March 16, 2015 the full trailer was released. The film premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 24, 2015, where it received a generally positive reception. It was released in theaters on January 27, 2016.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On August 5, 2016, Burns and Free announced that "Lazer Team 2" had been green-lit by Rooster Teeth in partnership with YouTube Red (now YouTube Premium), who financed the film, and that pre-production had begun. In December 2016, Matt Hullum confirmed Rooster Teeth is aiming to shoot "Lazer Team 2" in late Spring in Texas followed by release in 2017. Daniel Fabelo co-directed the sequel with Hullum. Nichole Bloom and Victoria Pratt also joined the cast. Filming for the sequel concluded in April 2017.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: At RTX Austin 2017, Rooster Teeth announced "Blood Fest", a horror-comedy film directed by Owen Egerton and starring Seychelle Gabriel, Robbie Kay, and Jacob Batalon. Other cast members include Zachary Levi, Barbara Dunkelman, Nick Rutherford, and Tate Donovan.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Rooster Teeth vs. Zombiens is a game made by Team Chaos that features some of the main Rooster Teeth personnel in their fight against zombies in the Rooster Teeth office and parking lot. It was made for iOS, Android and Steam platforms. It has since been taken down from IOS and Android platforms.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: At RTX 2014, Rooster Teeth announced during the "RWBY" panel on July 4 that a "RWBY" video game was in development, under the working title "RWBY: Grimm Eclipse", making this the first video game ever created by the company. An early demo of the game was available for consumers to play at the event. Rooster Teeth CEO Matt Hullum stated, ""RWBY" is a natural choice for us to focus on for our first in-house produced video game. Fans can expect that we will bring the same level of originality in action, comedy and design to the video game that has made the "RWBY" animated series such a hit."


title: Rooster Teeth

text: "RWBY: Grimm Eclipse" was initially developed as a fangame by Jordan Scott over the course of five months. A demo version was released on April 1, 2014, to celebrate Rooster Teeth's 11th anniversary, but the demo is no longer available for download. Scott stated at the time that it was not an ongoing project, and he had no plans for any future updates. He described it as a "survival-based action RPG" set in the world of "RWBY".


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On December 1, 2015, the game was released as an Early Access title on Steam after rapidly being approved through Steam's Greenlight feature.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: "Vicious Circle" was first announced on episode 526 of the Rooster Teeth Podcast by Burnie Burns and Gus Sorola. It is an uncooperative multiplayer shooter and Rooster Teeth's first original IP game. It was released on August 13, 2019 on Steam.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Achievement Hunter is a video gaming channel and division of Rooster Teeth, originally created in 2008 by Geoff Ramsey and Jack Pattillo as a new creative outlet during production of season 6 of Red vs. Blue. The channel was largely based on the achievement mechanic found in seventh-generation video game consoles after being made popular with Microsoft's release of the Xbox 360 with the channels produced by a rotating cast Rooster Teeth employees. Achievement Hunter has since become its own division with a consistent cast and has become a core component of Rooster Teeth Productions. In addition to main live-action channel, Achievement Hunter hosts gameplay content on the company's LetsPlay channel. They formerly also managed GameFails and LetsPlay Community channels on YouTube, but those are no longer uploaded on and currently serve as an archive of past GameFails and LetsPlay Community content.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: The LetsPlay channel has served a variety of uses since its launch, being most consistently used as the Let's Play channel for Achievement Hunter.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: The LetsPlay Network is a former multi-channel network (MCN) operated by Rooster Teeth. It was founded by Rooster Teeth co-founder Geoff Ramsey and was run by Luis Medina alongside Ramsey. Under this new venture, partnerships with several other YouTube channels, in addition to its own Achievement Hunter and Funhaus, would be established to would provide merchandise, promotion, and other benefits for its partners.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On March 28, 2016, a partnership with Kinda Funny was announced. Members of the group appear in Rooster Teeth content, and Kinda Funny merchandise became available on the Rooster Teeth Store. "Kinda Funny LIVE!" was presented by Let's Play and hosted by Burnie Burns. A partnership with The Creatures was announced on April 4, 2016. Upon their separate formations, channels Cow Chop and Game Attack were separately confirmed to be part of the “LetsPlay family”. Game Attack, which was initially spun off from ScrewAttack before becoming its own independent entity, and Cow Chop both had their own sections on Rooster Teeth's website. On May 11, Achievement Hunter announced a partnership between the LetsPlay Network and video game publisher Ubisoft. Streams and gameplay videos done by any of the Let's Play family members featuring games published by Ubisoft will be released exclusively on the Ubisoft US YouTube channel. On May 31, 2017, it was announced that YouTubers JT Machinima (now JT Music), NoahJ456, LazarBeam, and Sugar Pine 7 had joined Let's Play, with JT Machinima being the first of which to have merchandise sold through the RT Store.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On July 12, 2017, it was announced that The Creatures would be disbanding, ending their relationship with Rooster Teeth. In April 2019, Cow Chop announced a "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE", implying the channel would disband by the end of the year. On December 31, Cow Chop posted their final video. In May 2019, Sugar Pine 7 also announced their departure from the Rooster Teeth family. On May 1, 2019, Craig Skistimas of Game Attack announced they as well were now independent, had no further business relationship with Rooster Teeth and was no longer a part of the LetsPlay family. Since their departures, content from The Creatures and Game Attack are no longer hosted on Rooster Teeth's website and Cow Chop & Sugar Pine 7's content are now consolidated under the “Friends of RT” section.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: While Rooster Teeth still maintains relationships with Kinda Funny and JT Music, along with new deals with other entities, the “LetsPlay Network” has not been referenced since the mentioned departures. A similar kind of partnership with UK based The Yogscast has occurred, a deal that includes their own section on Rooster Teeth's website and apps, but the LetsPlay branding and channel has reverted to its function as the gameplay channel for Achievement Hunter.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Inside Gaming is the gaming news division of Rooster Teeth. Originally founded as The Know, an entertainment news division that discusses current events in movies, TV shows, gaming, technology, and media. It was mainly hosted by Ashley Jenkins and Brian Gaar, with a selection of other Rooster Teeth staff from each division within the company. It was initially a single news show hosted on Rooster Teeth's main YouTube channel before moving over to its own channel, where it has since expanded into several different categories of entertainment and tech news as well as several different shows, with the latest being "Glitch Please", a successor to their earlier podcast "The Patch", that was greenlit for a full series after six pilot episodes.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Previously The Know had hosted "Leaderboard", where Meg Turney had discussed esports news, "The Patch Game Club", where the hosts of "The Patch" would discuss a new video game they've played each week, and "Screen Play", a film and TV podcast. In June 2016, Turney announced on her vlog she was leaving Rooster Teeth to focus more on cosplay.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In October 2017, "Variety" announced Eric Vespe would join The Know as senior writer responsible for original reporting, interviews and developing new entertainment shows. Vespe had previously worked at Ain't It Cool News for 20 years.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On February 14, 2019, Rooster Teeth revived Machinima's Inside Gaming brand, renaming The Know to Inside Gaming. The Know and Machinima's social team were combined with Inside Gaming. Lawrence Sonntag, Adam Kovic, Bruce Greene and Alanah Pearce from Funhaus hosted Inside Gaming, which includes gaming news, features and reviews. Greene and Sonntag left in 2019. Autumn Farrell, formerly of Sugar Pine 7, took over Sonntag's position. Farrell and Pearce departed the company in October 2020. On January 5th, 2021 it was announced that Inside Gaming daily would end and all hosts would be joining Funhaus, however, the Inside Gaming weekend round-up would continue.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Funhaus (pronounced "funhouse") is a division of Rooster Teeth Productions, based in Los Angeles, California. The channel launched on February 16, 2015, by the former cast of Inside Gaming: Adam Kovic, James Willems, Bruce Greene, Lawrence Sonntag, Matt Peake, Sean "Spoole" Poole and Joel Rubin, later joined by former GameTrailers talent Elyse Willems in November 2015 and former IGN host Alanah Pearce in August 2018. Funhaus produces gameplay videos in a similar manner to Achievement Hunter. In addition to gameplay, Funhaus also produced segments for The Know up until November 2016. It produces many shows such as "Open Haus" (Q&A), Google Trends, podcasts called "Dude Soup" and "Film Haus", gameplay series such as "Demo Disk" and "Wheelhaus", a current live stream called FunhausTV on YouTube, and the now-defunct Sex Swing: The Animated Series. Shows produced by Funhaus for Rooster Teeth TV include "No Idea", "Arizona Circle", and "Last Laugh".


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In 2016, Poole and Rubin left Funhaus. Greene and Sonntag left in 2019. Kovic departed the company after breaching its code of conduct in October 2020. Pearce announced her departure in late October.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: ScrewAttack is a video gaming website started in 2006 by Craig Skistimas (known as 'Stuttering Craig' on the site) and Thomas Hanley (known as 'Handsome Tom'). The site grew to prominence through a partnership with GameTrailers which hosted their original content such as the SideScrollers podcast, Top 10, and Clip of the Week. Alongside ScrewAttacks original content was the hosting of content from other Video Game content creators most notably Angry Video Game Nerd was hosted on ScrewAttack from 2006 to 2011. From 2009 to 2013, ScrewAttack hosted an annual gaming convention, which included a competition called "Iron Man of Gaming" to find the best all-rounded gamer. On November 4, 2015, it was announced that ScrewAttack would become a division of Rooster Teeth and Let's Play. Its website was updated to be consistent with Rooster Teeth's branding, along with all its previously existing users becoming Rooster Teeth users and its forums being absorbed into Rooster Teeth's forums. In 2019, the YouTube channel officially rebranded as "DEATH BATTLE!" and began only producing the show.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: The website is primarily known for the web series "Death Battle", in which they pit pop culture icons against each other in a fight to the death and determine who would win and who would die based on research of the characters (notable examples include Optimus Prime against the RX-78 2 Gundam, RoboCop against the T-800 Terminator, Crash Bandicoot against Spyro the Dragon, and the Megazord against Voltron, amongst many others). After the research is finished, a scenario of the characters fighting is shown using various distinctive animation styles (using 2D sprite-based graphics, 3D models or 2D traditional animation), and very rarely—live action. The show is hosted by Wizard aka "Wiz" (voiced by Ben B. Singer, creator of the show), a mad scientist with a robotic arm, and Boomstick (voiced by Chad James), an alcoholic country man with a shotgun for a leg. Another primarily Death Battle host named “DUMMI” first appeared in the blocked Beerus vs Sailor Galaxia, he is likely based on Crash test dummies. Other content includes animated fight shows without research and relying on a vote to decide the winner called "DBX" ("Death Battle Exhibition") (which is mainly hosted by Marshall, aka "Ringmaster" (voiced by Billy B. Burson III) since season four, and uses Unreal Engine 4 for the arena background. Boomstick hosted the show for the first three seasons, but later returned as a guest in season six, alongside Wiz and DUMMI) and One-Minute Melee, a behind-the-scenes podcast called "Death Battle Cast", an informative show about various combatants called "Desk of Death Battle" which is hosted by another character called “Jocelyn The Intern”, and a limited show based on fictional vehicles racing called "Death Race" with Ringmaster as the host and Wiz and Boomstick as commentators. On February 4, 2019 the ScrewAttack YouTube channel was re-branded to Death Battle to better match the channel's main content. The ScrewAttack section of the Rooster Teeth website was turned into an incomplete archive for the channel's old content. Since his departure from Rooster Teeth Craig Skistimas has stated that working for Rooster Teeth was "the worst three years of my life". He has accused Rooster Teeth of stripping creative control over ScrewAttack from him and making decisions regarding ScrewAttack without input from himself or other ScrewAttack members.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Game Kids was a division of Rooster Teeth Productions aimed at creating kid- and family-friendly content. The channel launched on December 1, 2014 and featured the series "Sim Sisters" featuring Millie Ramsey, the daughter of Geoff Ramsey, and her nanny Chelsea playing Sims together, "Kids Play" featuring Matt Hullum and his children Webb and Mills or Burnie Burns and his children JD and Teddy, appearing on alternating weeks playing various games, and "Bro Gaming" featuring Rooster Teeth employee Caleb Denecour and his younger brother Jordan playing various cooperative games including an ongoing series in "Minecraft" and "". Burns announced on a podcast that the channel was quietly put on hiatus to figure out where the company wants to take it, with the channel not having been active since March 28, 2016.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Community-run events have occurred regularly since 2005. These included RvBTO in Toronto (the first event, now retired and replaced with Toronto:Unconventional), RvBCanWest in Vancouver, RT Philly in Philadelphia, RooTeeth in Melbourne, and SideQuest in Austin. In February 2011, Sorola announced the date for the first RTX, the company's first official fan event. Burns credited RTX "starting" with the early fan events in Canada.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In May 2011, Rooster Teeth held their first official community event in Austin, Texas. Initially planned as a small gathering for 200 people, demand was so high that over 500 tickets were accidentally sold within minutes of being made available online. Since RTX 2012, each event has been held in the Austin Convention Center, with the attendance growing from 5,000 in 2012 to 45,000 in 2015. In June 2015, Rooster Teeth announced RTX Australia, later rebranded as RTX Sydney, a collaboration with Hanabee and Supanova Pop Culture Expo. In February 2017, RTX London was announced, taking place October 14–15 of that year. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, RTX 2020, dubbed "RTX at Home", was held virtually from 15 to 25 September.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: "Let's Play Live" is an on-stage event produced by Rooster Teeth in which Achievement Hunter and members of the Let's Play family play video games and perform comedy sketches in front of a live audience. Their first event was held on February 20, 2015, at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas. On September 14, a documentary was released about the event for sponsors on their website.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: LPL returned to Austin the night before RTX 2018 began. In August 2018, Rooster Teeth announced they would replace RTX Sydney 2019 with three Let's Play Live events in different cities.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On December 9, 2008, Rooster Teeth launched the "Drunk Tank" podcast. It was renamed the "Rooster Teeth Podcast" in 2011, due to the previous name not being attractive to advertisers. The podcast is released weekly, and has won several honors, including being the most downloaded podcast on iTunes and winning the Best Gaming Podcast award at the Podcast Awards in 2013 and 2014.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In June 2017 Rooster Teeth launched its own podcast network, called "The Roost", representing creators such as h3h3Productions, Game Grumps, Shane Dawson, "Getting Doug With High" by Doug Benson, "Tiny Meat Gang" by Cody Ko and Noel Miller, and "The Valleyfolk" by Joseph Bereta, Elliott Morgan, and Steve Zaragoza, among others. In July 2018, The Roost added "The Last Podcast on the Left", hosted by Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, and Henry Zebrowski. On September 5, 2018 it was revealed that The Roost would also support both current and upcoming podcasts from The Beam, another podcast network, as part of a partnership between Rooster Teeth and Hello Sunshine.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: A.J Feliciano became the head of the network in August 2020. In October 2020 The Roost began representing prop collecting podcast "The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of." Rooster Teeth and AEW partnered to create the podcast "Wrestling With The Week" in January 2021. Anthony Padilla, and Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart launched podcasts with The Roost in early 2021.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: As of September 2021, The Roost network has over 100 shows and receives 300 million impressions per month. Rooster Teeth said the network increased its viewership by 50% and quadrupled revenue in 2021.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On October 4, 2004, after closing their phpBB forums, Rooster Teeth publicly launched an online community and social networking website as a way to stay in touch with fans while maintaining their own platform for distribution. This site included features such as community statistics, journals, an image gallery and a "mod point system" or "emodomy" that was meant to help members moderate the site with options to like or dislike posts. Currently, it receives 5 million unique monthly visitors and is home to over 2 million registered users of which 135,000 pay $5 per month as FIRST members.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: To host their own videos, Rooster Teeth paid a co-location facility $13,000. The cost from server fees prompted Rooster Teeth to implement a site wide program called "Sponsorships" in 2003 (later rebranded as Rooster Teeth FIRST members), which gave paying members access to content before being offered to the public, in addition to extra site features, exclusive videos and merchandise. Sponsorships have been credited with "keeping the lights on" in the company's early years and a "major reason" for Rooster Teeth's growth and the first way that they monetized content.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On July 1, 2016 the ad-free "Sponsorship" program was rebranded as "FIRST" and offered a new option to upgrade to an even higher-level tier called Double Gold that included such perks as: a 10% discount on all Rooster Teeth items, first access to live event VIP passes and a box of merchandise carrying a value more than $60.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Rooster Teeth's founders often emphasize the importance of the community and how it has helped them to remain relevant in web culture. In 2010, Burnie Burns stated he, "could not imagine RedVsBlue or Rooster Teeth without the community site." In 2014 Gus Sorola stated, "From the beginning we have always maintained and promoted our own community site, since before YouTube even existed". Building community is key to having an engaged, active audience who really enjoy your content." Burns expanded on this in September 2014, attributing how they've managed to build a global audience to constantly engaging in a two-way conversation with the company's "hyper engaged core". In 2016, Burns reiterated their growth again to listening and taking the community's feedback to heart. Burns repeated in 2016 that he considers the secret to the company's successes is their community and their conversation with the community. "Our model revolves around being the home for a core community, and growing it year-after-year ... the loyalty of a community to spread the gospel of your brand is absolutely critical" Fullscreen CEO George Strompolos, after acquiring Rooster Teeth, cited the "insanely powerful community" as a reason they felt the company was a perfect match to buy and later attributed "Lazer Team"'s success to the power of the community. In 2015, during the production of Rooster Teeth's first feature, co-founder and Director Matt Hullum stated, "We would not have been able to make "Lazer Team" without the community and really I don't think we would've wanted to." In 2017, Burns re-emphasized that "community is the cornerstone of Rooster Teeth" and one of their core values they impress upon new employees.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Community members have distinguished themselves on and beyond the website. Notable people to come from the community include Gavin Free, Barbara Dunkelman, and Kent Nichols. In October 2008, community member "Jeffson" became the first person to post that Barack Obama's presidential campaign had taken out billboards within the Xbox 360 version of "Burnout Paradise". After being posted to his journal, the story was picked up by major news outlets, including GamePolitics, MTV and "Wired". In 2010, Achievement Hunter community members "AxialMatt" and "Hightower" garnered attention with their "Japan World Cup 3" video. For "", Rooster Teeth used 10 community members to help unlock "Halo 3" armor suits for machinima production purposes. In February 2011, Burns tweeted that community member "madmanmoe" discovered the Rooster Teeth website was not blocked by the Libyan government and was blogging events on the website from Tripoli during the Libyan Civil War. The longest-running external resource site, RoosterTooths, has existed since 2005 and contains transcripts, biographies, and a history of the "Red vs. Blue" title screen.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Community members have been utilized for RT productions at every single RTX. In 2011, some 400 community members were used as zombie extras for a Horde Mode episode of "Immersion". In 2012, 1,800 attendees were used as extras for a scene in the RT production, "Day 5", which involved shutting down the main road in downtown Austin.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In 2013, hundreds of fans were used as extras for a water-bomb attack in an episode of The Slow Mo Guys. In 2014, casting calls and auditions for minor speaking roles in "Lazer Team" were held for RTX attendees. In 2015, attendees were invited to participate in an interactive, "narrative-driven experience" called "Murder at The RTX" which involved hunting clues at prepared "crime scenes". On June 20, 2016 Rooster Teeth confirmed they would be filming audience members at an RTX panel for use in their latest production, "Crunch Time".


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Many employees have come from the community. In 2014, Burns estimated "at least a third" of the company of 85 started in the fan community, adding it "keeps us grounded" and "makes a whole lot of sense from a business standpoint ... I don't have to explain to them what this company is trying to do." Ben McSweeney, illustrator of Rooster Teeth's logo, was hired by Burns after being found on the site's community forums in April 2003. Others include creative director Barbara Dunkelman, composers Nico Audy-Rowland and Jeff Williams of Trocadero, cartoonist Luke McKay, Achievement Hunters Caleb Denecour and Ray Narvaez, Jr., "Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures" creator Jordan Cwierz, and "RWBY" writer and director Kerry Shawcross. In August 2014, former intern and current content producer Blaine Gibson garnered media attention when he posted photos proposing to Disney Princesses at Walt Disney World. In July 2014 it was announced at RTX that fan Jordan Scott would be making the "RWBY" video game after posting footage of a demo he had made to his YouTube page. It was also announced during the RTX 2014 Achievement Hunter panel that Community Hunters Matthew "AxialMatt" Bragg and Jeremy "Jerem6401" Dooley would be joining AH as its newest employees.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In February 2019 Rooster Teeth cut all ties with actor Vic Mignogna due to accusations of sexual harassment.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In October 2020, Achievement Hunter's Ryan Haywood and Funhaus co-founder Adam Kovic were both involved in scandals involving their leaked nudes; Kovic parted ways with the company. Days later, multiple allegations of grooming underage fans came out against Haywood, and he was subsequently fired.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In June 2019, dozens of anonymous reviews from Glassdoor gained exposure, highlighting a negative crunch culture of long and unpaid hours, poor management, and over-reliance on temporary employees at Rooster Teeth Animation. Gray Haddock, Rooster Teeth's Head of Animation, stepped down two days after the allegations.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: Former Achievement Hunter host Mica Burton departed the company in April of 2018, during her time there she experienced much sexist, racist discriminatory abuse by the audience leading to her departure. During the 2020 George Floyd protests Burton stated that a larger reason for her leaving was because of the companies response to this abuse, following this a host of personalities at the company apologised for the incidents.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In October 2022, Kdin Jenzen, a former Achievement Hunter employee, posted online about her experiences working at the company. She accused the company of still having a "crunch" culture, not paying her fairly, and homophobic and transphobic abuse by upper management, to the extent that her nickname at the company was a slur. Hours later, Achievement Hunter cast members, including Rooster Teeth co-founder Geoff Ramsey, responded to Jenzen's message apologizing for their prior behavior at the company, as well as announcing a reduced release schedule for the future. The following day Rooster Teeth released a statement addressing the situation, claiming that they were taking steps to improve their work culture and reviewing pay parity at the company. Following Jenzen's message, numerous other former employees spoke up about their experiences working at Rooster Teeth, adding more accounts of unpaid work and discriminatory abuse while at the company. Rooster Teeth then released a second statement apologizing for harmful behaviors, listing changes made since 2020 including the introduction of pay bands and the replacement of the entire Human Resources department.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In November 2019, Rooster Teeth was accused of plagiarizing a fan-made weapon in an issue of RWBY DC Comics. In a statement posted on their website, they acknowledged the similarities and stated the artwork will be changed.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: On November 20, 2019, Rooster Teeth Vice President Michael Quinn was arrested for assaulting his wife. Quinn was fired three days later.


title: Rooster Teeth

text: In January 2020, "RWBY" fans accused Rooster Teeth of queerbaiting after the death of a character in chapter 12 of volume 7 (With Friends Like These).


title: Führer

text: Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader principle"), and Hitler was generally known as just ("the Leader").


title: Führer

text: In compound words, the use of "" remains common in German and is used in words such as (mountain guide) or (leader of the opposition). However, because of its strong association with Hitler, the isolated word itself usually has negative connotations when used with the meaning of "leader", especially in political contexts.


title: Führer

text: The word has cognates in the Scandinavian languages, spelled "fører" in Danish and Norwegian, which have the same meaning and use as the German word, but without necessarily having political connotations. In Swedish, "förare" normally means "driver" (of a vehicle). However, in the compound word "härförare", that part does mean "leader", and is a cognate of the German "Heerführer".


title: Führer

text: The first example of the political use of was with the Austrian Georg von Schönerer (1842–1921), a major exponent of pan-Germanism and German nationalism in Austria, whose followers commonly referred to him as the , and who also used the Roman salute – where the right arm and hand are held rigidly outstretched – which they called the "German greeting". According to historian Richard J. Evans, this use of "" by Schönerer's Pan-German Association, probably introduced the term to the German far-right, but its specific adoption by the Nazis may also have been influenced by the use in Italy of "", also meaning "leader", as an informal title for Benito Mussolini, the Fascist Prime Minister, and later (from 1922) dictator, of that country.


title: Führer

text: Adolf Hitler took the title to denote his function as the head of the Nazi Party; he received it in 1921 when, infuriated over party founder Anton Drexler's plan to merge with another antisemitic far-right nationalist party, he resigned from the party. Drexler and the party's Executive Committee then acquiesced to Hitler's demand to be made the chairman of the party with "dictatorial powers" as the condition for his return.


title: Führer

text: Within the Party's paramilitary organizations, the (SA) and its later much more powerful offshoot, the (SS), "" was the root word used in the names of their officer rankings, such as in , meaning "assault unit leader", equivalent to major, or , "senior leader", equivalent to senior colonel/brigadier.


title: Führer

text: In 1933, Hitler was appointed as (Chancellor of the Reich) by Paul von Hindenburg. A month later, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which allowed the cabinet to promulgate laws by decree; in practice, Hitler himself issued such decrees. One day before Hindenburg's death, Hitler and his cabinet decreed the "Law Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich," which stipulated that upon Hindenburg's death, the office of the president was to be merged with that of Chancellor. Thus, upon Hindenburg's death, Hitler became – although eventually was quietly dropped. Hitler therefore assumed the President's powers without assuming the office itself – ostensibly out of respect for Hindenburg's achievements as a heroic figure in World War I. The Enabling Act had specifically prohibited legislation that would affect the position or powers of the Reich President, but the first one-party Reichstag elected in November 1933 had passed an act on the first anniversary of Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, 30 January 1934, abolishing those restrictions. It was then approved by a referendum on 19 August.


title: Führer

text: Hitler saw himself as the sole source of power in Germany, similar to the Roman emperors and German medieval leaders. He used the title (Leader and Chancellor), highlighting the positions he already held in party and government, though in popular reception, the element was increasingly understood not just in reference to the Nazi Party, but also in reference to the German people and the German state. Soldiers had to swear allegiance to Hitler as "" (Leader of the German Reich and People). The title was changed on 28 July 1942 to "" (Leader of the Greater German Reich). In his political testament, Hitler also referred to himself as (Leader of the Nation).


title: Führer

text: Hitler took great care to give his dictatorship the appearance of legal sanction. He issued thousands of decrees that were based explicitly on the Reichstag Fire Decree. That decree itself was based on Article 48 of the constitution, which gave the president the power to take measures deemed necessary to protect public order. The Enabling Act was renewed in 1937 for four years and again in 1939 for four years by the Reichstag. In 1943, it was extended indefinitely by a decree from Hitler himself. Those extensions by the Reichstag were merely a formality with all other parties having been banned.


title: Führer

text: One of the Nazis' most-repeated political slogans was – "One People, One Realm, One Leader". American historian says the slogan "left an indelible mark on the minds of most Germans who lived through the Nazi years. It appeared on countless posters and in publications; it was heard constantly in radio broadcasts and speeches." The slogan emphasized the absolute control of the party over practically every sector of German society and culture – with the churches being the most notable exception. Hitler's word was absolute, superseding even the Constitution. However, he had a narrow range of interest – mostly involving diplomacy and the military – and so his subordinates interpreted his will to fit their own interests. This led to vicious power wrangles that were immensely beneficial to Hitler in aiding him to ensure that no one person held too much power to the extent of becoming a threat to his absolute rule.


title: Führer

text: According to the Constitution of Weimar, the President was Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Unlike "President", Hitler did take this title () for himself. When conscription was reintroduced in 1935, Hitler created the title of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, a post held by the Minister for War. He retained the title of Supreme Commander for himself. Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, then the Minister of War and one of those who created the Hitler oath, or the personal oath of loyalty of the military to Hitler, became the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces while Hitler remained Supreme Commander. Following the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair in 1938, Hitler assumed the commander-in-chief's post as well and took personal command of the armed forces. However, he continued using the older formally higher title of Supreme Commander, which was thus filled with a somewhat new meaning. Combining it with "Führer", he used the style (Leader and Supreme Commander of the ), yet a simple "Führer" after May 1942.


title: Führer

text: An additional title was adopted by Hitler on 23 June 1941 when he declared himself the "Germanic Führer" (), in addition to his duties as Führer of the German state and people. This was done to emphasize Hitler's professed leadership of what the Nazis described as the "Nordic-Germanic master race", which was considered to include peoples such as the Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Dutch, and others in addition to the Germans, and the intent to annex these countries to the German Reich in 1933. Waffen-SS formations from these countries had to declare obedience to Hitler by addressing him in this fashion. On 12 December 1941 the Dutch fascist Anton Mussert also addressed him as such when he proclaimed his allegiance to Hitler during a visit to the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. He had wanted to address Hitler as ("Führer of all Germanics"), but Hitler personally decreed the former style. Historian Loe de Jong speculates on the difference between the two: implied a position separate from Hitler's role as ("Führer and Reich Chancellor of the Greater German Empire"), while served more as an attribute of that main function. As late as 1944, however, occasional propaganda publications continued to refer to him by this unofficial title.


title: Führer

text: has been used as a military title (compare Latin Dux) in Germany since at least the 18th century. The usage of the term "Führer" in the context of a company-sized military subunit in the German Army referred to a commander lacking the qualifications for permanent command. For example, the commanding officer of a company was (and is) titled "Kompaniechef" (literally, Company Chief), but if he did not have the requisite rank or experience, or was only temporarily assigned to command, he was officially titled "Kompanieführer". Thus operational commands of various military echelons were typically referred to by their formation title followed by the title , in connection with mission-type tactics used by the German military forces. The term was also used at lower levels, regardless of experience or rank; for example, a was the leader of a squad of infantry (9 or 10 men).


title: Führer

text: Under the Nazis, the title was also used in paramilitary titles (see Freikorps). Almost every Nazi paramilitary organization, in particular the SS and SA, had Nazi party paramilitary ranks incorporating the title of . The SS including the Waffen-SS, like all paramilitary Nazi organizations, called all their members of any degree except the lowest of something; thus confusingly, was also an official rank title for a specific grade of general. The word was also a generic word referring to any commander or leader of troops and could be applied to NCOs or officers at many different levels of command.


title: Führer

text: In Germany, the isolated word "" is usually avoided in political contexts, due to its intimate connection with Nazi institutions and with Hitler personally. However, the suffix is used in many compound words. Examples include (mountain guide), (tourist guide), (CEO or EO), (train driver), (travel guide book), and (team captain — also referred to as ) or as a prefix such as in (driver's license) and or (driver's cab). Since German is a language with grammatical gender, refers to a male leader; the feminine form is


title: Führer

text: The use of alternative terms like "" (a borrowing from the French, as is the English "chief", e.g. ) or (often in compound words like , or ) is usually not the result of replacing of the word "Führer", but rather using terminology that existed before the Nazis. The use of to refer to a political party leader is rare today and (chairman) is the more common term. However, the word ("leader of the (parliamentary) opposition") is more commonly used.


title: Maggie Wheeler

text: Margaret Emily Wheeler (née Jakobson) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Janice on the television sitcom "Friends" (1994–2004), and Anita on "Ellen" (1994–1996).


title: Maggie Wheeler

text: Wheeler was born Margaret Emily Jakobson in New York City, the daughter of Barbara, a writer, and John Jakobson, who began his career on Wall Street as one of the youngest members of the New York Stock Exchange. She was raised in a secular Jewish household and graduated from The Calhoun School in New York City.


title: Maggie Wheeler

text: In the 1980s, Wheeler (under her maiden name of Jakobson) briefly dabbled in voice acting on the animated series "SilverHawks", where she provided all the female voices, specifically the villainess Melodia and the heroine Steelheart/Emily Hart, and on the "Karate Kat" and "Mini-Monsters" segments of "The Comic Strip". She also starred in the 1989 film, "New Year's Day", alongside David Duchovny.


title: Maggie Wheeler

text: After she became Maggie Wheeler, there has been a rumor that she auditioned for the role of Monica Geller in the series "Friends". However, she denied this in an interview, stating that she only auditioned for the role of Janice Goralnik, which she was invited to play. Janice was a recurring character of the series and particularly known as a frequent love interest of main character Chandler Bing. She appeared at least once in each season; her 19 episodes tie her with Christina Pickles for "Friends"’ third most frequent guest actor, behind only Elliott Gould's 20 episodes, and James Michael Tyler's 150 episodes.


title: Maggie Wheeler

text: She also auditioned for the role of Debra Barone, on the American sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond". Although she was the producers' choice, CBS ended up selecting Patricia Heaton. Instead, Wheeler played the recurring role of Debra's friend, Linda.


title: Maggie Wheeler

text: According to Kathy Griffin's autobiography, "Official Book Club Selection", Wheeler was cast in the role of Vicki for the pilot episode of "Suddenly Susan" and was later replaced by Griffin.


title: Maggie Wheeler

text: She had a star billing in the first season of "Ellen". She appeared on the hit comedy "Seinfeld" in the episode "The Fix-Up", as one of Elaine's friends who is set up with George. She has appeared in many other television programs, including "Drake & Josh", "ER", "The X-Files", "The War at Home", "Will & Grace", "Jack and Jill", "How I Met Your Mother" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm".


title: Maggie Wheeler

text: In 1998, she appeared in the remake of Disney's "The Parent Trap", playing the younger of a mother-daughter pair of camp counselors. Wheeler provided the voice of Odile in "Barbie of Swan Lake", and Trinette in the animated sitcom "Archer".


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: Fleetwood Mac is the tenth studio album by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, released on 11 July 1975 by Reprise Records. It was the band's second eponymous album, the first being their 1968 debut album; it is sometimes referred to among fans as the White Album. This was the first Fleetwood Mac album with Lindsey Buckingham as guitarist and Stevie Nicks as vocalist, after Bob Welch departed the band in late 1974. It was also the band's last album to be released on the Reprise label until 1997's "The Dance" (the band's subsequent albums until then were released through Warner Bros. Records, Reprise's parent company).


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: The album peaked at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 chart dated 4 September 1976, 58 weeks after entering the chart, and spawned three top-twenty singles: "Over My Head", "Rhiannon", and "Say You Love Me", the last two falling just short of the top ten, both at number 11. It has been certified seven times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over seven million copies. Peaking at number 23 on the UK Albums Chart, it was a prelude to a run of hugely successful albums for the band in Britain, including four number ones: "Rumours", "Tusk", "Tango in the Night", and "Behind the Mask".


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: In 1974, Fleetwood Mac relocated from England to California to manage the band's affairs better. In California, they recorded an album, "Heroes Are Hard to Find", and set out on tour. Shortly after finishing the tour, Bob Welch (guitarist, singer, and composer) left the band, ending Fleetwood Mac's ninth lineup in eight years, to join the band Paris. Now looking for both a new guitarist and a recording studio, Mick Fleetwood met with producer Keith Olsen at Sound City Studios to listen to some demos. There, Olsen played Fleetwood an album he had recently engineered, titled "Buckingham Nicks". Fleetwood particularly enjoyed the guitar solo on the song "Frozen Love", and decided to hire both Olsen and the guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham. However, Buckingham would not accept Fleetwood's offer unless he agreed to also hire Buckingham's musical and romantic partner, Stevie Nicks, even though they were close to breaking up. After an informal interview at a Mexican restaurant, Mick Fleetwood invited both Buckingham and Nicks to join the band, and this tenth lineup of the band proved to be its most successful. Within three months, the band had recorded the album "Fleetwood Mac".


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: During the recording sessions, bassist John McVie took offence to Buckingham's assertive nature in the studio, particularly when telling the other band members what he wanted them to play. McVie informed Buckingham that "The band you're in is Fleetwood Mac. I'm the Mac. And I play the bass."


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: Many of the songs on "Fleetwood Mac" were written before Buckingham and Nicks joined the band. "Rhiannon", "I'm So Afraid", and "Monday Morning" were written and performed live by the duo and were initially slated to appear on a second Buckingham Nicks album. "Crystal" was recycled from the first Buckingham Nicks album, but with a different arrangement.


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: Like all of the band's studio albums except "The Dance" (1997), the front cover photo of "Fleetwood Mac" does not show the whole band, including, in this case, only drummer Mick Fleetwood (standing) and bass guitarist John McVie (kneeling).


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: "Fleetwood Mac" was released on 11 July 1975. Though the band experienced only modest success immediately after the release, they were determined to promote their new album, and, after touring doggedly for several months, they started to see the results of their hard work. In an interview with "Uncut", Stevie Nicks said of the album: "We just played everywhere and we sold that record. We kicked that album in the ass." It took fifteen months, but "Fleetwood Mac" eventually reached the top of the US charts.


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: In 2003, the album was ranked number 182 on "Rolling Stone" Magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", maintaining the ranking in a 2012 revised list.


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: All of the singles that derived from "Fleetwood Mac" used mixes of the songs different from those used on the album (and occasionally different takes, as in the case of "Over My Head"). A "single mix" was also created for "Blue Letter", and this mix was only available as the B-side of the "Warm Ways" single from 1975 until it was included as a bonus track on the 2004 re-issue of the album (along with an instrumental called "Jam #2" and the single versions of "Say You Love Me", "Rhiannon (Will You Ever Win)", and "Over My Head").


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: In the US, the album spawned three top twenty singles: "Over My Head", "Rhiannon", and "Say You Love Me", the last two falling just short of the top ten, both at number 11. A version of "Landslide" taken from the live reunion album "The Dance" was released as a single in the US in 1998 and reached number 51 on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: In the UK, the album's first single was "Warm Ways", which was not released as a single in the US. Initially, the album generated limited interest in the UK, and the first three singles released by the new lineup failed to enter the UK Singles Chart, while "Say You Love Me" reached number 40. Following the massive success of "Rumours" two years later, however, interest in the band reignited, "Fleetwood Mac" was re-released in 1978, and a reissue of "Rhiannon" peaked just outside the top 40, at number 46.


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: The album debuted at number 183 on the US "Billboard" 200 chart dated 2 August 1975. It eventually reached its peak at number one on the chart dated 4 September 1976, which was 58 weeks after it had entered the chart. On 11 September 2018, the album was certified seven times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over seven million copies in the United States.


title: Fleetwood Mac (1975 album)

text: In the UK, the album debuted at number 49 on the UK Albums Chart dated 6 November 1976. It peaked at number 23 its second week on the chart. On 5 July 1978, the album was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales of over 100,000 copies in the UK.


title: Sarmatians

text: The Sarmatians (; ; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th century AD.


title: Sarmatians

text: Originating in the central parts of the Eurasian Steppe, the Sarmatians were part of the wider Scythian cultures. They started migrating westward around the fourth and third centuries BC, coming to dominate the closely related Scythians by 200 BC. At their greatest reported extent, around 100 BC, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south.


title: Sarmatians

text: In the first century AD, the Sarmatians began encroaching upon the Roman Empire in alliance with Germanic tribes. In the third century AD, their dominance of the Pontic Steppe was broken by the Germanic Goths. With the Hunnic invasions of the fourth century, many Sarmatians joined the Goths and other Germanic tribes (Vandals) in the settlement of the Western Roman Empire. Since large parts of today's Russia, specifically the land between the Ural Mountains and the Don River, were controlled in the fifth century BC by the Sarmatians, the Volga–Don and Ural steppes sometimes are called "Sarmatian Motherland."


title: Sarmatians

text: The Sarmatians in the Bosporan Kingdom assimilated into the Greek civilization, while others were absorbed by the proto-Circassian Meot people, the Alans and the Goths. Other Sarmatians were assimilated and absorbed by the Early Slavs. A people related to the Sarmatians, known as the Alans, survived in the North Caucasus into the Early Middle Ages, ultimately giving rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group.


title: Sarmatians

text: The Greek name sometimes appears as (Σαυρομάται), which is almost certainly a variant of the same name. Nevertheless, historians often regarded these as two separate peoples, and archaeologists habitually use the term 'Sauromatian' to identify the earliest phase of Sarmatian culture. Though it was historically suggested that their name derives from the word lizard (), linking to the Sarmatians' use of reptile-like scale armour and dragon standards, this almost certainly unfounded.


title: Sarmatians

text: The 20th-century English scholar Harold Walter Bailey derived the name from , composed of and the East Iranian plural suffix . was a derivation of the Iranian root , itself a cognate of the Avestan base (), which means "to move suddenly" and which was a cognate of the Old Indic base () from which were derived the terms () and (), meaning "hunter." This name was connected to (), which was the name of a Western region, and from which was derived the name of the character .


title: Sarmatians

text: Oleg Trubachyov derived the name from the Indo-Aryan "*sar-ma(n)t" (feminine – rich in women, ruled by women), the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian word "*sar-" (woman) and the Indo-Iranian adjective suffix "-ma(n)t/wa(n)t". By that derivation was noted the high status of women (matriarchy), which was unusual from the Greek point of view and went to the invention of Amazons (the Greek name for Sarmatians was "Sarmatai Gynaikokratoumenoi", ruled by women).


title: Sarmatians

text: The territory inhabited by the Sarmatians, which was known as Sarmatia () to Greco-Roman ethnographers, covered the western part of greater Scythia, and corresponded to today's Central Ukraine, South-Eastern Ukraine, Southern Russia, Russian Volga, and South-Ural regions, and to a smaller extent the northeastern Balkans and around Moldova.


title: Sarmatians

text: The ethnogenesis of the Sarmatians occurred during the 4th to 3rd centuries BC, when Scythian-related nomads originating from the southern Ural foothills migrated southwest into the territory of the Sauromatians, between the lower Volga and Don rivers. These nomads conquered the Sauromatians, whose name eventually came to be applied to the whole of the new people formed out of these migrations, whose constituent tribes were the , , , and the . Despite the similarity between the names Sarmatian and Sauromatian, modern authors distinguish between the two, since Sarmatian culture did not directly develop from the Sauromatian culture and the core of the Sarmatian culture was composed of these newly arrived migrants.


title: Sarmatians

text: During the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, the centre of Sarmatian power remained north of the Caucasus and in the 3rd century BC the most important centres were around the lower Don, Kalmykia, the Kuban area, and the Central Caucasus.


title: Sarmatians

text: During the end of the 4th century BC, the Scythians, the then dominant power in the Black Sea Steppe, were militarily defeated by the ian kings II and in 339 and 313 BC respectively. They experienced another military setback after participating in the Bosporan Civil War in 309 BC and came under pressure from the Thracian and the Germanic . At the same time, in Central Asia, following the ian conquest of the Achaemenid Empire, the new Seleucid Empire started attacking the and nomads who lived to the north of its borders, who in turn put westward pressure on the Sarmatians. Pressured by the and in the east and taking advantage of the decline of Scythian power, the Sarmatians began crossing the Don river and invaded (later in the mediaeval period, the military campaigns of against the Turks in Central Asia would similarly pressure the Hungarians into moving westwards into the Pannonian Basin), and also migrated south into the North Caucasus.


title: Sarmatians

text: The first wave of westward Sarmatian migration happened during the 2nd century BC, and involved the Royal Sarmatians, or (from Scytho-Sarmatian , meaning "kings"), who moved into the Pontic Stepp, and the , also called the or , who initially settled between the Don and Dnieper rivers. The , who might have been a mixed Scytho-Sarmatian tribe, followed the and occupied the Black Sea steppes up to the Dnipro and raided the Crimean region during that century, at the end of which they were involved in a conflict with the generals of the Pontic king VI in the Bosporan, while the became his allies.


title: Sarmatians

text: That the tribes formerly referred to by Herodotus as Scythians were now called Sarmatians by Hellenistic and Roman authors implies that the Sarmatian conquest did not involve a displacement of the Scythians from the Pontic Steppe, but rather that the Scythian tribes were absorbed by the Sarmatians. After their conquest of , the Sarmatians became the dominant political power in the northern Pontic Steppe, where Sarmatian graves first started appearing in the 2nd century BC. Meanwhile, the populations which still identified as Scythians proper became reduced to Crimea and the Dobruja region, and at one point the Crimean Scythians were the vassals of the Sarmatian queen . Sarmatian power in the Pontic Steppes was also directed against the Greek cities on its shores, with the city of being forced to pay repeated tribute to the Royal Sarmatians and their king , who is mentioned in the inscription along with the tribes of the , Scythians, and . Another Sarmatian king, , was named in a peace treaty concluded by the king of with his enemies.


title: Sarmatians

text: Two other Sarmatian tribes, the , who had previously originated in the Transcaspian Plains immediately to the northeast of before migrating to the west, and the , moved to the west across the Volga and into the Caucasus mountains' foothills between the 2nd to 1st centuries BC. From there, the pressure from their growing power forcing the more western Sarmatian tribes to migrate further west, and the and destroyed the power of the Royal Sarmatians and the , with the being able to extend their rule over a large region stretching from the Caucasus across the Terek–Kuma Lowland and Kalmykia in the west up to the Aral Sea region in the east. Yet another new Sarmatian group, the , originated in Central Asia out of the merger of some old tribal groups with the . Related to the who invaded in the 2nd century BC, the were pushed west by the people (known to Graeco-Roman authors as the in Greek, and the in Latin) who were living in the Syr Darya basin, from where they expanded their rule from Fergana to the Aral Sea region.


title: Sarmatians

text: The hegemony of the Sarmatians in the Pontic Steppe continued during the 1st century BC, when they were allied with the Scythians against , a general of VI , before allying with against the Romans and fighting for him in both Europe and Asia, demonstrating the Sarmatians' complete involvement in the affairs of the Pontic and Danubian regions. During the early part of the century, the had migrated to the area to the northeast of the Lake. Meanwhile, the moved westwards until they reached the Danube and the moved into the area between the Dnipro and the Danube and from there further west. These two peoples attacked the regions around and , respectively. During this period, the and also attacked the Roman province of , whose governor had to defend the Roman border of the Danube. During the 1st century BC century, various Sarmatians reached the Pannonian Basin and the passed through the territories corresponding to modern-day Moldavia and Wallachia before settling in the Tisza valley, by the middle of the century.


title: Sarmatians

text: Although the Sarmatian movements stopped temporarily during the 1st century BC due to the rise of the Dacian kingdom of Burebista, they resumed after the collapse of his kingdom following his assassination and in 16 BC had to repel a Sarmatian attack on and , while further attacks around 10 BC and 2 BC were defeated by .


title: Sarmatians

text: Meanwhile, other Sarmatian tribes, possibly the , sent ambassadors to the Roman emperor , who tried to establish a diplomatic accommodation with them. During the 1st century AD, the and , who were mutually hostile, participated in the Roman–Bosporan War on opposite sides: the and their king allied with III against his half-brother I, who was allied with Rome and the . With the defeat of , the were also routed and lost rulership over most of their lands. Between 50 and 60 CE, the had appeared in the foothills of the Caucasus, from where they attacked the Caucasus and Transcaucasus areas and the Parthian Empire. During the 1st century AD, the expanded across the Volga to the west, absorbing part of the and displacing the rest, and pressure from the forced the and to continue attacking the Roman Empire from across the Danube. During the 1st century AD , two Sarmatian rulers from the steppe named and were minting coins in .


title: Sarmatians

text: The continued their westward migration following the conflict on the Bosporan , and by 69 AD they were close enough to the lower Danube that they were able to attack across the river when it was frozen in winter, and soon later they and the were living on the coast of the Black Sea, and they later moved further west and were living in the areas corresponding to modern-day Moldavia and western Ukraine.


title: Sarmatians

text: The Sarmatian tribe of the , who had had close contacts with the Romans, eventually settled to the south of the Danube river, in Thrace, and another Sarmatian tribe, the , were also living in the same area alongside a section of the Scythian .


title: Sarmatians

text: During the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, the often bothered the Roman authorities in ; they participated in the destruction of the kingdom of , and often migrated to the east across the Transylvanian Plateau and the Carpathian Mountains during seasonal movements or for trade.


title: Sarmatians

text: By the 2nd century AD, the had conquered the steppes of the north Caucasus and of the north Black Sea area and created a powerful confederation of tribes under their rule. Under the hegemony of the a trade route connected the Pontic Steppe, the southern Urals, and the region presently known as Western Turkestan. One group of the , the , migrated north into the territory of what is presently Poland.


title: Sarmatians

text: The hegemony of the Sarmatians in the steppes began to decline over the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, when the Huns conquered Sarmatian territory in the Caspian Steppe and the Ural region. The supremacy of the Sarmatians was finally destroyed when the Germanic Goths migrating from the Baltic Sea region conquered the Pontic Steppe around 200 AD. In 375 AD, the Huns conquered most of the living to the east of the Don river, massacred a significant number of them, and absorbed them into their tribal polity, while the to the west of the Don remained free from Hunnish domination. As part of the Hunnic state, the participated in the Huns' defeat and conquest of the kingdom of the Ostrogoths on the Pontic Steppe. Some free fled into the mountains of the Caucasus, where they participated in the ethnogenesis of populations including the Ossetians and the Kabardians, and other Alan groupings survived in Crimea. Others migrated into Central and then Western Europe, from where some of them went to and , and some joined the Germanic Vandals into crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and creating the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa.


title: Sarmatians

text: The Sarmatians in the Bosporan Kingdom assimilated into the Greek civilization. Others assimilated with the proto-Circassian Meot people, and may have influenced the Circassian language. Some Sarmatians were absorbed by the Alans and Goths. During the Early Middle Ages, the Proto-Slavic population of Eastern Europe assimilated and absorbed Sarmatians during the political upheavals of that era. However, a people related to the Sarmatians, known as the Alans, survived in the North Caucasus into the Early Middle Ages, ultimately giving rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group.


title: Sarmatians

text: In 1947, Soviet archaeologist Boris Grakov defined a culture flourishing from the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, apparent in late kurgan graves (buried within earthwork mounds), sometimes reusing part of much older kurgans. It was a nomadic steppe culture ranging from the Black Sea eastward to beyond the Volga that is especially evident at two of the major sites at Kardaielova and Chernaya in the trans-Uralic steppe. The four phases – distinguished by grave construction, burial customs, grave goods, and geographical spread – are:


title: Sarmatians

text: While "Sarmatian" and "Sauromatian" are synonymous as ethnonyms, by convention they are given different meanings as archaeological technical terms. The term "Prokhorovka culture" derives from a complex of mounds in the Prokhorovski District, Orenburg region, excavated by S. I. Rudenko in 1916.


title: Sarmatians

text: Reportedly, during 2001 and 2006 a great Late Sarmatian pottery centre was unearthed near Budapest, Hungary in the Üllő5 archaeological site. Typical grey, granular Üllő5 ceramics form a distinct group of Sarmatian pottery is found ubiquitously in the north-central part of the Great Hungarian Plain region, indicating a lively trading activity.


title: Sarmatians

text: A 1998 paper on the study of glass beads found in Sarmatian graves suggests wide cultural and trade links.


title: Sarmatians

text: Archaeological evidence suggests that Scythian-Sarmatian cultures may have given rise to the Greek legends of Amazons. Graves of armed women have been found in southern Ukraine and Russia. David Anthony noted that approximately 20% of Scythian-Sarmatian "warrior graves" on the lower Don and lower Volga contained women dressed for battle as warriors and he asserts that encountering that cultural phenomenon "probably inspired the Greek tales about the Amazons."


title: Sarmatians

text: The Sarmatians were part of the Iranian steppe peoples, among whom were also Scythians and Saka. These also are grouped together as "East Iranians." Archaeology has established the connection 'between the Iranian-speaking Scythians, Sarmatians, and Saka and the earlier Timber-grave and Andronovo cultures'. Based on building construction, these three peoples were the likely descendants of those earlier archaeological cultures. The Sarmatians and Saka used the same stone construction methods as the earlier Andronovo culture. The Timber grave (Srubnaya culture) and Andronovo house building traditions were further developed by these three peoples. Andronovo pottery was continued by the Saka and Sarmatians. Archaeologists describe the Andronovo culture people as exhibiting pronounced Caucasoid features.


title: Sarmatians

text: The first Sarmatians are mostly identified with the Prokhorovka culture, which moved from the southern Urals to the Lower Volga and then to the northern Pontic steppe, in the fourth–third centuries BC. During the migration, the Sarmatian population seems to have grown and they divided themselves into several groups, such as the Alans, Aorsi, Roxolani, and Iazyges. By 200 BC, the Sarmatians replaced the Scythians as the dominant people of the steppes. The Sarmatians and Scythians had fought on the Pontic steppe to the north of the Black Sea. The Sarmatians, described as a large confederation, were to dominate these territories over the next five centuries. According to Brzezinski and Mielczarek, the Sarmatians were formed between the Don River and the Ural Mountains. Pliny the Elder wrote that they ranged from the Vistula River (in present-day Poland) to the Danube.


title: Sarmatians

text: The Sarmatians spoke an Iranian language that was derived from 'Old Iranian' and was heterogenous. By the first century BC, the Iranian tribes in what is today South Russia spoke different languages or dialects, clearly distinguishable. According to a group of Iranologists writing in 1968, the numerous Iranian personal names in Greek inscriptions from the Black Sea coast indicate that the Sarmatians spoke a North-Eastern Iranian dialect ancestral to Alanian-Ossetian. However, Harmatta (1970) argued that "the language of the Sarmatians or that of the Alans as a whole cannot be simply regarded as being Old Ossetian."


title: Sarmatians

text: The Roxolani, who were one of the earlier Sarmatian tribes to have migrated into Europe and therefore were among the more geographically western Sarmatians, used helmets and corselets made of raw ox hide, and wicker shields, as well as spears, bows, and swords. The Roxolani adopted these forms of armour and weaponry from the Germanic Bastarnae near whom they lived.


title: Sarmatians

text: The more eastern Sarmatian tribes used scale armour and used a long lance called the and bows in battle.


title: Sarmatians

text: In a study conducted in 2014 by Gennady Afanasiev, "et al.", from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, DNA was extracted from bone fragments found in seven out of ten Alanic burials on the Don River. Four of them turned out to belong to Y-DNA Haplogroup G2 and six of them possessed mtDNA haplogroup I.


title: Sarmatians

text: In 2015, the Institute of Archaeology in Moscow conducted research on various Sarmato-Alan and Saltovo-Mayaki culture Kurgan burials. In these analyses, the two Alan samples from the fourth to sixth century AD turned out to belong to Y-DNA haplogroups G2a-P15 and R1a-Z94, while two of the three Sarmatian samples from the second to third century AD were found to belong to Y-DNA haplogroup J1-M267 while one belonged to R1a. Three Saltovo-Mayaki samples from the eighth to ninth century AD turned out to have Y-DNA corresponding to haplogroups G, J2a-M410 and R1a-z94.


title: Sarmatians

text: A genetic study published in "Nature Communications" in March 2017 examined several Sarmatian individuals buried in Pokrovka, Russia (southwest of the Ural Mountains) between the fifth century BC and the second century BC. The sample of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1b1a2a2. This was the dominant lineage among males of the earlier Yamnaya culture. The eleven samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to the haplogroups U3, M, U1a'c, T, F1b, N1a1a1a1a, T2, U2e2, H2a1f, T1a, and U5a1d2b. The Sarmatians examined were found to be closely related to peoples of the earlier Yamnaya culture and to the Poltavka culture.


title: Sarmatians

text: A genetic study published in "Nature" in May 2018 examined the remains of twelve Sarmatians buried between 400 BC and 400 AD. The five samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1a1, I2b, R (two samples), and R1. The eleven samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to C4a1a, U4a2 (two samples), C4b1, I1, A, U2e1h (two samples), U4b1a4, H28, and U5a1.


title: Sarmatians

text: A genetic study published in "Science Advances" in October 2018 examined the remains of five Sarmatians buried between 55 AD and 320 AD. The three samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup R1a1a and R1b1a2a2 (two samples), while the five samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroup H2a1, T1a1, U5b2b (two samples), and D4q.


title: Sarmatians

text: A genetic study published in "Current Biology" in July 2019 examined the remains of nine Sarmatians. The five samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroup Q1c-L332, R1a1e-CTS1123, R1a-Z645 (two samples), and E2b1-PF6746, while the nine samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroup W, W3a, T1a1, U5a2, U5b2a1a2, T1a1d, C1e, U5b2a1a1, U5b2c, and U5b2c.


title: Sarmatians

text: A archaeogenetic study published in "Cell" in 2022, analyzed 17 Late Sarmatian samples from 4-5th century AD from the Pannonian Basin in Hungary. The nine extraced Y-DNA belonged to a diverse set of haplogroups, 2x I2a1b1a2b1-CTS4348, 2x I1a2a1a1a-Z141, I1a-DF29, G2a1-FGC725, E1b1b-L142.1, R1a1a1b2a2a1-Z2123 and R1b1a1b1a1a2b-PF6570, while the mtDNA haplogroups C5, H, 2x H1, H5, H7, H40, H59, HV0 I1, J1, 2x K1a, T1a, 2x T2b, U2.


title: Sarmatians

text: The Roman author Ovid recorded that one of the Sarmatian tribes, the Coralli, had blond hair, which is a characteristic that Ammianus Marcellinus also ascribed to the Alans. He wrote that nearly all of the Alani were "of great stature and beauty, their hair is somewhat yellow, their eyes are frighteningly fierce."


title: Sarmatians

text: Modern historians have offered conflicting opinions about the description of the Alans as being tall and having blond hair. For instance, Roger Batty has posited that "presumably, only some of the Alans would have been blond". Bernard Bachrach has likewise suggested that because the Alans assimilated so many foreigners, the majority of them are unlikely to have been blond-haired, and that there was no distinguishing physical characteristic of the Alans. However, John Day has argued that Bachrach's analysis is flawed, because he mistranslated the original passage from Ammianus Marcellinus, and that the majority of the Alans were in fact blond. Iver Neumann has suggested that the description of Alans as blond may mean that their Indo-Iranian ancestry was greater than it was in the Huns. Charles Previté-Orton wrote that the Alans were only partly of Iranian heritage, and that the other part of their ancestry came from captive women and slaves.


title: Sarmatians

text: Sarmatism (or Sarmatianism) is an ethno-cultural concept with a shade of politics designating the formation of an idea of the origin of Poland from Sarmatians within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was the dominant Baroque culture and ideology of the nobility ("szlachta") that existed in times of the Renaissance to the eighteenth centuries. Together with another concept of "Golden Liberty," it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth's culture and society. At its core was the unifying belief that the people of the Polish Commonwealth descended from the ancient Iranic Sarmatians, the legendary invaders of Slavic lands in antiquity.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: As Allied troops entered and occupied German territory during the later stages of World War II, mass rapes of women took place both in connection with combat operations and during the subsequent occupation of Germany. Scholars agree that the majority of the rapes were committed by Soviet occupation troops. The wartime rapes were followed by decades of silence.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: According to historian Antony Beevor, whose books were banned in 2015 from some Russian schools and colleges, NKVD (Soviet secret police) files have revealed that the leadership knew what was happening, but did little to stop it. It was often rear echelon units who committed the rapes. According to professor Oleg Rzheshevsky, "4,148 Red Army officers and many privates were punished for committing atrocities". The exact number of German women and girls raped by Soviet troops during the war and occupation is uncertain, but historians estimate their numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly as many as two million.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: Sexual violence was committed by the armies of the Western Allies and the Red Army as their troops fought their way into the Third Reich and during the period of occupation. Mass rape by Soviet soldiers first began during the Battle of Romania and during the Budapest offensive in Hungary.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: On the territory of Nazi Germany, it began on 21 October 1944 when troops of the Red Army crossed the bridge over the Angerapp creek (marking the Germany–Poland border) and committed the Nemmersdorf massacre before they were beaten back a few hours later.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: The majority of the assaults were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million. According to historian William Hitchcock, in many cases women were the victims of repeated rapes, some as many as 60 to 70 times. At least 100,000 women are believed to have been raped in Berlin, based on surging abortion rates in the following months and contemporary hospital reports, with an estimated 10,000 women dying in the aftermath. Female deaths in connection with the rapes in Germany, overall, are estimated at 240,000. Antony Beevor describes it as the "greatest phenomenon of mass rape in history" and concludes that at least 1.4 million women were raped in East Prussia, Pomerania and Silesia alone. According to the Soviet war correspondent Natalya Gesse, Soviet soldiers raped German females from eight to eighty years old. Soviet and Polish women were not spared either. When General Tsygankov, head of the political department of the First Ukrainian Front, reported to Moscow the mass rape of Soviet women deported to Germany for forced labour, he recommended that the women be prevented from describing their ordeal on their return to Russia.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: When the Yugoslav Partisan politician Milovan Djilas complained about rapes in Yugoslavia, Joseph Stalin reportedly stated that he should "understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometres through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle". On another occasion, when told that Red Army soldiers sexually maltreated German refugees, he reportedly said: "We lecture our soldiers too much; let them have their initiative." Nevertheless, there are no surviving records to prove that rape was legally sanctioned.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: Konstantin Rokossovsky issued order No 006 in an attempt to direct "the feelings of hatred at fighting the enemy on the battlefield", which had little effect. There were also a few arbitrary attempts to exert authority. For example, the commander of one rifle division is said to have "personally shot a lieutenant who was lining up a group of his men before a German woman spreadeagled on the ground".


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: The historian Norman Naimark writes that after mid-1945, Soviet soldiers caught raping civilians were usually punished to some degree, which ranged from arrest to execution. The rapes continued until the winter of 1947–48, when the Soviet Military Administration in Germany finally confined Soviet Army troops to guard posts and camps strictly and to separate them from the residential population in the Soviet zone of Germany.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: In his analysis of the motives behind the extensive Soviet rapes, Norman Naimark singles out "hate propaganda, personal experiences of suffering at home, and an allegedly fully demeaning picture of German women in the press, not to mention among the soldiers themselves" as some reasons for the widespread rapes. Naimark also noted the effect that tendency to binge-drink alcohol (of which much was available in Germany) had on the propensity of Soviet soldiers to commit rape, especially rape-murder. Naimark also notes the allegedly-patriarchal nature of Russian culture and of the Asian societies constituting the Soviet Union, where dishonor had been repaid by raping the women of the enemy. The fact that the Germans had a much higher standard of living visible even when in ruins "may well have contributed allegedly to a national inferiority complex among Russians". Combining "Russian feelings of inferiority", the resulting need to restore honor, and their desire for revenge may be reasons for why many women were raped in public as well as in front of husbands before both were killed.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: According to Antony Beevor, revenge was not the only reason for the frequent rapes, but the Soviet troops' feeling of entitlement to all types of spoils of war, including women, was an important factor as well. Beevor exemplifies that with his discovery that Soviet troops also raped Soviet and Polish girls and women that were liberated from Nazi concentration camps as well as those who were held for forced labour at farms and factories. The rapes were often perpetrated by rear echelon units.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: The description of the events by Beevor was challenged by Makhmut Gareev, who said the work by Beevor was worse than Joseph Goebbels's propaganda. According to Russian Professor Oleg Rzheshevsky, 4,148 Red Army officers and "a significant number" of soldiers were convicted of atrocities for crimes committed against German civilians.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: Richard Overy, a historian from King's College London, has criticised the viewpoint put forth by the Russians by asserting that they refuse to acknowledge Soviet war crimes committed during the war: "Partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse, and partly it was because they were writing the victors' history."


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: Geoffrey Roberts writes that the Red Army raped women in every country they passed through but mostly in Austria and Germany: 70,000–100,000 rapes in Vienna, and "hundreds of thousands" of rapes in Germany. He notes that the German Army probably committed tens of thousands of rapes on the Eastern Front but that murder was the more typical crime for them.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: A documentary book, "War's Unwomanly Face" by Svetlana Alexievich, includes memories by Soviet veterans about their experience in Germany. According to a former army officer, "We were young, strong, and four years without women. So we tried to catch German women and... Ten men raped one girl. There were not enough women; the entire population run from the Soviet Army. So we had to take young, twelve or thirteen year-old. If she cried, we put something into her mouth. We thought it was fun. Now I can not understand how I did it. A boy from a good family... But that was me." A woman telephone operator from the Soviet Army recalled:


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: "When we occupied every town, we had first three days for looting and ... [rapes]. That was unofficial of course. But after three days one could be court-martialed for doing this... I remember one raped German woman laying naked, with hand grenade between her legs. Now I feel shame, but I did not feel shame back then... Do you think it was easy to forgive [the Germans]? We hated to see their clean undamaged white houses. With roses. I wanted them to suffer. I wanted to see their tears. Decades had to pass until I started feeling pity for them." While serving as an artillery officer in East Prussia, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn witnessed war crimes against local German civilians by Soviet military personnel. Of the atrocities, Solzhenitsyn wrote: "You know very well that we've come to Germany to take our revenge."


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: Atina Grossman in her article in "October" describes how until early 1945, the abortions in Germany were illegal except for medical and eugenic reasons and so doctors opened up and started performing abortions to rape victims for which only an affidavit was requested from a woman. It was also typical that women specified their reasons for abortions as being mostly socio-economic (inability to raise another child), rather than moral or ethical. Many women would claim they were raped but their accounts described the rapist as looking Asian or Mongolian. German women uniformly described the rapist in racialist terms by claiming they were never blond but consistently "of Mongolian or Asiatic type". The stereotype of the "hordes of Mongolian savages," eager to murder, pillage, destroy and rape, had been propagandated by the Nazi authorities to mobilize people for the fight against the Soviet offensive.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: Nevertheless, some evidence of Central Asian troops committing rape in Berlin was recorded. In April 1945, Magda Wieland took shelter in the cellar of her apartment house. She described that the first Soviet soldier to find her was a young 16 year-old Central Asian male, who raped her. It was reported that a Soviet commander was greatly embarrassed by wholesale rape of German women by ethnic Kazakh soldiers who were by far the worse offenders and were described as being Mongol Hordes. Another recorded case involves German director Schmidt, who burst into Villa Franka, and yelled at Russian commander Isayev "Your soldiers are raping German women!". The raped German victim pointed at a Kazakh soldier being the perpetrator, and was arrested at the spot. The Kazakh soldier in return claimed he wanted revenge against the Germans who killed his two brothers in battle.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: The first Soviet troops to fight in Berlin consisted mostly of Mongolians. Even the young German-Jewish fugitive Inge Deutschkron, described her first "Russian" as small, with crooked legs and "a typical mongolian face with almond eyes and high cheekbones".


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: Accounts of rape of German women by the Mongolians were also recorded. For example, a letter from July 24, 1945 by a German female victim stated:


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: I hereby certify that at the end of April this year during the Russian march into Berlin I was raped in a loathsome way by two Red Army soldiers of Mongol/Asiatic type.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: Eyewitness testimony from females in the Battle of Berlin also described Soviet soldiers of Mongolian type:


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: The next morning, we women proceeded to make ourselves look as unattractive as possible to the Soviets by smearing our faces with coal dust and covering our heads with old rags, our make-up for the Ivan. We huddled together in the central part of the basement, shaking with fear, while some peeked through the low basement windows to see what was happening on the Soviet-controlled street. We felt paralyzed by the sight of these husky Mongolians, looking wild and frightening. At the ruin across the street from us the first Soviet orders were posted, including a curfew. Suddenly there was a shattering noise outside. Horrified, we watched the Soviets demolish the corner grocery store and throw its contents, shelving and furniture out into the street. Urgently needed bags of flour, sugar and rice were split open and spilled their contents on the bare pavement, while Soviet soldiers stood guard with their rifles so that no one would dare to pick up any of the urgently needed food. This was just unbelievable. At night, a few desperate people tried to salvage some of the spilled food from the gutter. Hunger now became a major concern because our ration cards were worthless with no hope of any supplies.


title: Rape during the occupation of Germany

text: The front-line Russian troops who did the fighting – as a woman, you didn't have to be afraid of them. They shot every man they saw, even old men and young boys, but they left the women alone. It was the ones who came afterwards, the second echelon, who were the worst. They did all the raping and plundering. They stripped homes of every single possession, right down to the toilets.