A man poses with a hyena along a street in Lagos, Nigeria November 4, 2008. (Photo by Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)

Venezuela's food shortages, inflation and crumbling medical sector have become such a source of anguish that a growing number of young women are reluctantly opting for sterilizations rather than face the hardship of pregnancy and child-rearing. Traditional contraceptives like condoms or birth control pills have virtually vanished from store shelves, pushing women towards the hard-to-reverse surgery. While no recent national statistics on sterilizations are available, doctors and health workers say demand for the procedure is growing. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/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.

Onlookers gather around a struggling beached whale in the Yoff neighborhood of Dakar, Senegal Wednesday, May 21, 2008. Residents worked Wednesday morning to save some of the more than 80 whales that were stranded on the beach Tuesday night. This whale was successfully towed out to sea by a fishing boat, though at least 20 others lay dead on the beach by midday Wednesday. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

Migrants play soccer at makeshift camp in Via Cupa (Gloomy Street) in downtown Rome, Italy, August 2, 2016. Italy is taking in thousands of boat migrants every week for a third year in a row, and friction is common between them and those who live along the path many take on their journey towards northern Europe. (Photo by Max Rossi/Reuters)

A man from the Dominican Republic wears a devil mask while dancing in the street during Carnival celebrations in Panama City, Monday, February 16, 2015. (Photo by Arnulfo Franco/AP Photo)

An young Indian Jain devotee dressed as Lord Krishna participates in a religious rally organised on the occasion of Mahavir Jayanti in Kolkata on April 2, 2015. The most important religious holiday in Jainism, Mahavir Jayanti celebrates the birth of Mahavira, the last Tirthankara, which is generally accepted as 599 BCE. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP Photo)

Apollo 9 Command/Service Modules (CSM) nicknamed “Gumdrop” and Lunar Module (LM), nicknamed “Spider” are shown docked together as Command Module pilot David R. Scott stands in the open hatch. Astronaut Russell L. Schweickart, Lunar Module pilot, took this photograph of Scott during his EVA as he stood on the porch outside the Lunar Module. Apollo 9 was an Earth orbital mission designed to test docking procedures between the CSM and LM as well as test fly the Lunar Module in the relative safe confines of Earth orbit. (Photo by NASA)