Members of the Old Surrey Burstow and West Kent Hunt ride to Chiddingstone Castle for the annual Boxing Day hunt in Chiddingstone, south east England December 26, 2014. Since a ban stopped fox hunting with hounds, hunts continued with dogs chasing down a pre-laid scented trail instead of a fox. (Photo by Luke MacGregor/Reuters)

Jonathon Seed, Joint Master and Huntsman with the Avon Vale Hunt, leads the hounds and fellow riders for their traditional Boxing Day hunt, on December 26, 2011 in Lacock, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Guadalajara-based artist Gonzalo Lebrija created a public art installation in the parking lot (1430 Delgany Street, Denver, CO 80202) across from the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA Denver) in the summer of 2010. The installation, entitled History of Suspended Time: Monument for the Impossible, was developed as a dual collaboration with MCA Denver's museum-wide exhibition, Energy Effects: Art & Artifacts from the Landscape of Glorious Excess, as well as Denver's inaugural 2010 Biennial of the Americas, an international event that celebrated the culture, ideas and people of the Western Hemisphere.

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 truffle is seen on a table in Alba, north-western Italy November 11, 2013. Located in the heart of the Langhe – the hilly southern area of Italy's northwestern Piedmont region – Alba is the country's capital of white truffles, a variety of the prized fungus which grows underground. Truffles are found two to eight inches (5-20cm) below the ground near the roots of trees. They give off an odour which lasts for a limited period of time and can be detected with the assistance of well-trained dogs and experienced hunters. Output of white truffles, which are not cultivated and only grow naturally in forests, has fallen in Italy over the past few years, largely because climate change has brought a damaging mix of drought and torrential rains. (Photo by Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)