“At her job, Maria Torero cares for sick human beings. At home, she lavishes love on slowly dying cats – 175 of them at last count. The 45-year-old nurse has turned her two-story, eight-room apartment into a hospice for cats with feline leukemia, scattering it with scores of feeding dishes and at least two dozen boxes litter boxes. Some have suggested she shelter healthy cats instead. “That's not my role”, she told The Associated Press. “I'm a nurse. My duty is to the cats that nobody cares about”. She said that “people don't adopt adult cats, especially if they are terminally ill”. – Franklin Briceno via Associated Press. (Photo by Martin Mejia/AP Photo)

“Misty Morning”. Every morning, people expect sunny weather. Photo location: Bali, Indonesia. (Photo and caption by Henry Adam/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A student from the General Yermolov Cadet School takes part in weapons training during a two-day field exercise near the village of Sengileyevskoye, just outside the south Russian city of Stavropol April 13, 2014. The General Yermolov Cadet School in the southern Russian city of Stavropol is a state-run institution that teaches military and patriotic classes in addition to a normal syllabus. (Photo by Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters)

An employe of Russian Space Training Center hangs out to dry space suits of Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, NASA's U.S. flight engineer Kathleen Rubins, and Japanese space agency's flight engineer Takuya Onishi, right, after their undergoing training near in Noginsk, 60 km (38 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, July 2, 2014. The training was intended to simulate the capsule landing on water. Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, Japanese space agency's flight engineer Takuya Onishi, and NASA's U.S. flight engineer Kathleen Rubins are being trained for a future mission to the International Space Station. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

A Tibetan man stirs butter tea made for the arriving guest during the function organised to mark Losar or the Tibetan New Year at a Tibetan Refugee Camp in Lalitpur February 19, 2015. Tibetans across the world marked the arrival of the New Year with prayers and festivities. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo)

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 mahout rides an elephant at Tad Sae Waterfall outside Luang Prabang, Laos July 31, 2016. Protected by the United Nations cultural heritage agency UNESCO, Luang Prabang is one of the most alluring places in the region – a city that evokes old-world romance that has gained a reputation as a travellers' Shangri La. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

Two carnival revellers masquerade as Leonardo da Vinci's painting “Mona Lisa” pose in St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy, Sunday, January 31, 2016. Carnival-goers in Venice are being asked by police to momentarily lift their masks as part of new anti-terrorism measures for the annual festivities. (Photo by Domenico Stinellis/AP Photo)