Italian model Vittoria Ceretti presents a creation by designer Virginie Viard as part of her Spring/Summer 2024 Women's ready-to-wear collection show for fashion house Chanel during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France ob October 3, 2023. (Photo by Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters)

A grizzly bear fishes for salmon under the Northern Lights in Klukshu, Yukon, in the north of Canada on March 3, 2025. The bear makes use of the darkness because the salmon can't see well enough to swim away. (Photo by Peter Mather/Solent News & Photo Agency)

Karsten Thielker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning German photographer with The Associated Press who covered human suffering in conflict zones around the globe, has died at the age of 54. Thielker died on October 3 in Berlin of esophageal cancer, his wife Janna Ressel said. Here: A wounded Russian soldier, who has been evacuated with his comrades, weeps in a helicopter on his way out of Grozny on Friday, February 3, 1995, as the fighting in the Chechen capital continues. The massive Russian force that invaded Chechnya has taken very heavy losses against a small but determined guerrilla force. (Photo by Karsten Thielker/AP Photo/File)

Revellers enjoy a night out in central Liverpool, northwest England, on December 30, 2020 before hightened Tier 3 restrictions closing hospitality venues, and bars indoor and outdoor socialising between households are imposed in the city amid surging cases of the novel coronavirus. (Photo by Oli Scarff/AFP Photo)

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.

Roof-topping enthusiast Daniel Lau takes a selfie with high-rise buildings down below as he stands on the top of a skyscraper in Hong Kong, China on August 15, 2017. A craze that began in Russia has now taken hold in Hong Kong, one of the world's most vertical cities. Mr Lau said he had been inspired by Russian climbers and that he was unafraid of the vertiginous heights he scales. (Photo by ImagineChina/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Masked men ride in a morning procession as part of the “Cavalhadas” festival in Pirenopolis, Brazil, Sunday, May 19, 2013. The popular festival is a tradition that was introduced in the 1800's by a Portuguese priest to mark the the ascension of Christ. The 3-day festival reenacts the Christian knights' medieval defeat of the Moors. (Photo by Eraldo Peres/AP Photo)

Base jumpers leap from the 300-metre high skydeck of Malaysia's landmark Kuala Lumpur Tower against the backdrop of the city's skyline on October 3, 2016 during the annual International KL Tower Base-Jump event. (Photo by Manan Vatsyayana/AFP Photo)