The start of the Al-Sirr camel race on November 19, 2025 in El Hassana, Egypt. The Al-Sirr camel race is one of the most culturally significant and widely celebrated sporting events among the Bedouin communities of Sinai. Every year, Bedouin tribes gather here to hold this traditional race, an event that preserves its authentic heritage. Unlike modern camel races elsewhere, the Bedouin here do not use robotic jockeys or advanced racing technologies. Instead, the camels are ridden by young boys aged approximately 5 to 16, maintaining a long-standing cultural practice. (Photo by Ali Moustafa/Getty Images)

Tennis star Maria Sharapova poses with a Porsche 911 RSR race car at the 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S November 16, 2016. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

Aenne Schwarz as a “daughter” and Anna Sophie Krenn on Thursday, September 8, 2017, during the photoprobe of “Paradies flood / Lost symphony / Part one of the klimatrilogie” in the Akademietheater in Vienna, Austria. The piece premiered on September 9, 2017. (Photo by Georg Hochmuth/APA)

The galactic core of the Milky Way glows brightly in the clear night sky above St Catherine?s Chapel at Abbotsbury in Dorset, UK on August 2, 2024. (Photo by Graham Hunt/Alamy Live News)

Rebecca Smith poses for a photograph during winter solstice with her Irish Wolfhound dog called Amazing Grace at the 5000 year old stone age tomb of Newgrange (not in view) in the Boyne Valley at sunrise in Newgrange, Ireland, December 21, 2016. (Photo by Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters)

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.

Burning effigies of winter during a celebration of Maslenitsa festival (Pancake Week) at the Etnomir (Ethnoworld) cultural and educational center in Kaluga Region, Russia on March 1, 2020. The holiday celebrates the end of winter and marks the arrival of spring. (Photo by Sergei Bobylev/TASS)

A combination photo shows some of the colourful doors seen in Rabat's Medina and Kasbah of the Udayas, September 2014. UNESCO made Rabat a World Heritage Site two years ago and media and tour operators call it a “must-see destination”. But it seems the tourist hordes have yet to find out. While visitors are getting squeezed through the better-known sites of Marrakesh and Fez, the old part of Rabat - with its beautiful Medina and Kasbah of the Udayas - remains an almost unspoiled oasis of calm. Smaller and more compact, its labyrinths of streets, passages and dead ends are a treasure trove of shapes and colours, of moments begging to be caught by the photographer's lens. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)