A nurse consoles herself with a box of chocolates as she reads a paper-back thriller. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). Circa 1955

Children in a Hong Kong refugee resettlement area watch as former Vice President Richard Nixon shows them his badminton service. Nixon visited Hong Kong, April 4, 1964, during his tour of countries in the Far East. (Photo by 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 painting of a Trabant car bursting through a wall in post unification Berlin, August 1993. (Photo by Steve Eason/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

7th August 1941: A Soviet sniper targets the enemy with the telescopic sight on his rifle.

People look at the body of a person who died during the earthquake, on the road to Camp-Perrin, Les Cayes, Haiti, Sunday, August 15, 2021. A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on Saturday, with the epicenter about 125 kilometers (78 miles ) west of the capital of Port-au-Prince, the US Geological Survey said. (Photo by Joseph Odelyn/AP Photo)

The HMAS Adelaide is scuttled off the coast of Avoca Beach on April 13, 2011 in Gosford, Australia. After the scuttling was succesfully protested in 2010, today the HMAS Adelaide was finally scuttled off the NSW Central Coast to create an artifical reef, the first of its kind in this state. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images)

A car mechanic repairs a tire hoop at the Nicolini Collection Car Museum in Lima, Peru June 1, 2017. (Photo by Guadalupe Pardo/Reuters)