Tourists ride a cable car in the form a of a Chiva, a bus used to serve rural routes, in Pitalito, Colombia, Tuesday, April 5, 2017. The ride called “La Chiva Voladora” costs about $0.70 and you zip along about 800 meters from one side of a hill to another. (Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)

“Cassowaries are large, flightless birds related to emus and (more distantly) to ostriches, rheas, and kiwis”, writes Olivia Judson in the September issue of National Geographic magazine. How large? People-size: Adult males stand well over five foot five and top 110 pounds. Females are even taller, and can weigh more than 160 pounds. Dangerous when roused, they’re shy and peaceable when left alone. But even birds this big and tough are prey to habitat loss. The dense New Guinea and Australia rain forests where they live have dwindled. Today cassowaries might number 1,500 to 2,000. And because they help shape those same forests – by moving seeds from one place to another – “if they vanish”, Judson writes, “the structure of the forest would gradually change” too. (Photo by Christian Ziegler/National Geographic)

A PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) activist with her body painted promotes veganism in Bangkok April 21, 2016. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

Stranded cars remain in a flooded street during an intense rainstorm in Havana, on April 29, 2015. Two people were killed, three buildings collapsed and another 24 suffered some kind of damage due to the heavy rain that affected several sectors of Havana Wednesday. (Photo by Yamil Lage/AFP Photo)

Daniel J. Wabsey, a 58-year-old war veteran, sits outside his tent at Camp Hope in Las Cruces, New Mexico October 6, 2015. “I've been traveling for 35 or 38 years. Getting inside would take a while to get used to. I just want to be able to eat, sleep and be safe. We all get along and understand in Camp Hope. We've all been there. With common sense you can survive out here”, Wabsey said. Camp Hope describe themselves as an “alternative transitional living project for the homeless”. Around 50 people live at the camp. (Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

A woman greets a street artist at the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, northern Spain July 8, 2016. (Photo by Eloy Alonso/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.

Migrants rush as they try to get on a train heading to the border with Serbia at the train station of Gevgelija, on the Macedonian-Greek border, on August 9, 2015. Non-EU Serbia's frontier with Hungary, which is in the bloc's passport-free Schengen zone, has become a major crossing point for the huge numbers of migrants entering the EU. (Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP Photo)