People eat sushi off the body of a model at an opening event of a bar in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, August 22, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

“Aurora Hunters”. Photographers taking part in a photography tour on the Lofoten Islands in Norway, pull over on the side of the road to take a photo of their first ever Aurora Borealis after spotting it from their tour bus. Photo location: Rystad, Lofoten Islands, Norway. (Photo and caption by Mark Gee/National Geographic Photo Contest)

An attendee tries Acton's RocketSkates at the 2015 International CES at the Sands Expo and Convention Center on January 6, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The motorized skates that you strap to your shoes are powered by Lithium Ion batteries and can go up to 12 mph. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

People dressed in underwear run into a store to pick free clothes during a promotional event starting the summer sale at an outlet of the Desigual clothing retailer in Berlin, June 20, 2014. Desigual treated the first 100 customers with a free outfit if they stripped down to their underwear for the first day of the outlet's summer sale. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

A man plays in front of a wave crashing into Beirut's Corniche, a seaside promenade, as high winds sweep through Lebanon ahead of an impending storm January 6, 2015. (Photo by Jamal Saidi/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.

A performer poses during celebrations after Rahul Gandhi, newly elected president of India's main opposition Congress party, took charge as the president during a ceremony outside the party's headquarters in New Delhi, India, December 16, 2017. (Photo by Altaf Hussain/Reuters)