Venezuela's food shortages, inflation and crumbling medical sector have become such a source of anguish that a growing number of young women are reluctantly opting for sterilizations rather than face the hardship of pregnancy and child-rearing. Traditional contraceptives like condoms or birth control pills have virtually vanished from store shelves, pushing women towards the hard-to-reverse surgery. While no recent national statistics on sterilizations are available, doctors and health workers say demand for the procedure is growing. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

Somali couple Mohamed Noor (L) and Huda Omar pose for a photograph at their makeshift home during their wedding ceremony in Mogadishu's Rajo camp, Somalia August 17, 2016. Having met two years ago, the pair have just married at Rajo camp, where some 400 families live. Most, like Noor's parents, came here in the early 1990s to flee famine. (Photo by Feisal Omar/Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the Byzantine and Christian museum in Athens, Friday, May 27, 2016. Russia's president is due in financially struggling Greece Friday for a state visit that will include a trip to a 1,000-year-old, all-male Orthodox Christian sanctuary in the north of the country. (Photo by Thanassis Stavrakis/AP Photo)

“Sokolica”. Sokolica, Poland. (Photo and caption by Marcin Kęsek/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

ATTENTION! All pictures are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture.

Heavy artillery on parade during a review of the Moscow Garrison troops during the May Day celebrations in Red Square, passing posters of Lenin and Stalin. (Photo by N. Sitnikov/Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1st May 1947

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.

The Lumix GX1 single lens reflex (SLR) camera with 14-42 mm powerzoom lens is displayed at the Panasonic booth at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center January 10, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The new camera comes with an external viewfinder and flash and an ISO up to 12,800. The camera as shown sells for USD 949; the camera body alone is USD 799. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

A group of young men use a selfie stick to take a picture of themselves in shallow waters known as the first cataract of the River Nile outside Khartoum, Sudan, May 22, 2015. In Sudan, which faces insurgences in the western region of Darfur and along its border with breakaway South Sudan, as well as double-digit inflation and high unemployment, life goes on for young people in the capital Khartoum. (Photo by Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters)