Newborn giant panda triplets, which were born to giant panda Juxiao (not pictured), are seen inside an incubator at the Chimelong Safari Park in Guangzhou, Guangdong province August 9, 2014. According to local media, this is the fourth set of giant panda triplets born with the help of artificial insemination procedures in China, and the birth is seen as a miracle due to the low reproduction rate of giant pandas. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

A tourist poses for a picture with the Sphinx at the Pyramids of Giza in Cairo, Egypt, on October 19, 2011. (Reuters/Jamal Saidi)

A colony of penguins gather with the Bark Europa in the background, on March 05, 2015 in South Georgia Island. An adventurer has documented his 5,000 miles journey aboard a 100-year-old ship, sailing from Argentina to Antarctica to Cape Town. (Photo by Andrew Orr/Barcroft Images)

A tale of two foxes. Surprising behaviour, witnessed in Wapusk national park, on Hudson Bay, Canada, in early winter. Red foxes don’t actively hunt Arctic foxes, but where the ranges of two predators overlap, there can be conflict. Though the light was poor, the snow-covered tundra provided the backdrop for the moment that the red fox paused with the smaller fox in its mouth in a grim pose. (Photo by Don Gutoski/2015 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

Born in 1958 in Abbazia, Italy, Frank Horvat is considered one of the founding fathers of French fashion photography. Frank Horvat: Storia di un Fotografo is on at Palazzo Chiablese Musei Reali, Turin, until 16 June. Here: Prostitutes, Bois de Boulogne, 1956. (Photo by Frank Horvat/The Guardian)

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 climate activist wears an oxygen mask to demonstrate the possibility of pumping oxygen from a tree in a bottle in the future, during a protest against the government's deforestation practices of Sri Lanka's main wildlife forests for developments in Colombo, Sri Lanka on March 22, 2021. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

Bouwe Brouwer: Postcards from Fryslân (series finalist). “People from Fryslân are looked upon by the rest of the Netherlands as stubborn people. Going back as far as the Spanish occupation, they have a history of resisting authority. Postcards from Fryslân is still an ongoing project – hopefully a lifelong one. When it started, it represented only a collection of places that seemed interesting. Currently, the hope is to cover most of the province, as you never know in advance where the best narratives are. But still, it is all candid, unposed and in the public realm”. (Photo by Bouwe Brouwer/Street Photographers Awards 2021)