Dancers wearing traditional attires take part in the 7th Annual Ingoma Dance Competition organised by The Natal Playhouse theatre in Durban on March 21, 2017. The Ingoma Dance is considered one of the most purist forms of traditional Zulu dance. (Photo by Rajesh Jantilal/AFP Photo)

Musicians of the alphorn band "Holdersberger Alp- Traum- Blaeser" perform their skills on a raft floating on the Elbsee lake near Aitrang, southern Germany, on June 11, 2017. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP Photo/DPA)

The model Gigi Hadid receives attention in Soho, New York, USA on June 27, 2017. (Photo by Broadimage/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Paris Jackson arrives at the Calvin Klein Collection fashion show during New York Fashion Week at New York Stock Exchange on February 13, 2018. (Photo by Ouzounova/Splash News and Pictures)

Do you think that history is a science? Well, not exactly. First, and foremost, history is the state's “legend of wars”, it’s official regalia. Of course, public historians are not interested in scientific truth – quite the opposite. In this respect, any attempt to present a state’s history as altruistic and benevolent as possible is welcomed and encouraged – as opposed to any revisionism attempts that may be more accurate. In this matter, Chinese have surpassed us all – they revised in highly creative manner (but rather shamelessly) the technology already invented by Europeans, a process that resulted in oldest state on the planet. Here is an interesting paradox: ask any sinologist about the Middle Kingdom during second century B.C., and he will describe it to you in such a vivid manner as if he has been living there all his life – but as soon as you will ask him to describe Chinese history in the 19-20th centuries… let's say, his eagerness will be greatly diminished. However, we will discuss China in a different article, and in the meantime we will try to understand how exactly historic “legend of wars” is formed and functions – based on a specific and well-known example. A great example is Ferdinand Magellan's first voyage around the world.

A lightning strikes St Peter's dome at the Vatican on February 11, 2013. Pope Benedict XVI announced today he will resign as leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics on February 28 because his age prevented him from carrying out his duties – an unprecedented move in the modern history of the Catholic Church. (Photo by Filippo Monteforte/AFP Photo)

Takeoka Chisaka, Hiroshima, Japan. “One morning in August 1945, I was walking home from the night shift at a factory in Hiroshima. As I reached my door, there was a huge explosion. When I came to, my head was bleeding and I had been blasted 30m away. The atomic bomb had detonated. When I found my mother, her eyes were badly burned. A doctor said they had to come out, but he didn’t have the proper tools so used a knife instead. It was hellish. I became a peace-worker after the war. In the 1960s, at a meeting at the UN, I met one of the people who created the atomic bomb. He apologised”. (Photo and caption by Sasha Maslov)

A riot policeman uses a baton to hit a rioting University of Nairobi student in Kenya's capital Nairobi, in this May 20, 2014 file photo. (Photo by Noor Khamis/Reuters)