Brick-carving featuring Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) maids performing musical instruments is seen at the Chinese Music History Museum in Xian University of Architecture and Technology on September 27, 2008 in Xian of Shaanxi Province, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Somalis remove the body of a man killed in a blast in the capital Mogadishu, Somalia Saturday, October 14, 2017. A huge explosion from a truck bomb has killed at least 20 people in Somalia's capital, police said Saturday, as shaken residents called it the most powerful blast they'd heard in years. (Photo by Farah Abdi Warsameh/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.

Photographer David Emitt Adams creates tintypes on discarded cans he collects from the Sonoran Desert. In his artist statement, Adams says that some are more than four decades old, which have earned a deep reddish-brown, rusty coloration. (Photo by David Emitt Adams)

A tiger jumps while being trained at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi province, west of Bangkok, Thailand, February 25, 2016. Thailand's controversial Tiger Temple, dogged for years by talk that it supplies the black market and mistreats its animals, is fighting to keep the big cats after wildlife authorities rejected a bid to extend a zoo licence that expired in 2013. The Buddhist temple, home to more than 100 tigers, has been investigated for suspected links to wildlife trafficking and wildlife activists have accused it of illegal breeding of the animals. Thai wildlife authorities have sent ten of the temple's tigers to a wildlife sanctuary. But the temple, which bills itself as a wildlife sanctuary, has denied links to illegal trafficking, and wants to hold on to its tigers. (Photo by Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters)

A volunteer puts a banknote on remains for luck during a mass exhumation at Poh Teck Tung Foundation Cemetery in Samut Sakhon province, Thailand November 3, 2015. Human remains from 3,890 unclaimed bodies have been dug out of graves to be cleaned and put into storage in a warehouse before being cremated, in order to make room for further unidentified corpses. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

Couples (L-R) Chaiyut Phuangphoeksuk and Prontathourn Pronnapatthun, and Nichapatr Koomsombut and Pirat Rungthongoran run from sheep during their wedding ceremony at a resort in Ratchaburi province February 13, 2015. Three Thai couples took part in the wedding ceremony arranged by a resort themed around fun activities ahead of Valentine's Day. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

A man rides a golden motorbike on a street in Bangkok, Thailand on August 14, 2020. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)