A woman cries while sitting on a road amid the destroyed city of Natori, Miyagi Prefecture in northern Japan March 13, 2011, after a massive earthquake and tsunami. Five years on from the tsunami that triggered meltdowns at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, the page is anything but turned. A magnitude 9 earthquake and towering tsunami on March 11, 2011 killed nearly 16,000 people along Japan's northeastern coast and left more than 2,500 missing. The 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami swept away everything in its path, including houses, ships, cars and farm buildings. (Photo by Asahi Shimbun/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.

Valery Bystritskii, 10, gets a fellow student into a lock at Bunny's Gym in July 2015 in Winchester, Tennessee. (Photo by Mike Saliba/Barcroft USA)

“Misty Morning”. Every morning, people expect sunny weather. Photo location: Bali, Indonesia. (Photo and caption by Henry Adam/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A worker assembles a sеx doll at the WMDOLL factory in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, China, July 11, 2018. The factory has over 200 full-time workers, all dolls are handmade and each requires the cooperation of at least five workers. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Workers carry a metal sheet at a dockyard in Dhaka, Bangladesh, December 5, 2018. (Photo by Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

Syrian refugee boys play with toy guns at Eminonu district in Istanbul, Turkey, 08 January 2019. (Photo by Sedat Suna/EPA/EFE)

(L-R) Pieter Van Lankveld, Jay Schippers, Ynze Oegema, Justin Kimmann, Teun Kivit and Twan Van Gendt compete during the Dutch National BMX Championships at Olympic Training Centre Papendal on October 11, 2020 in Arnhem, Netherlands. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)