A woman poses for a friend next to blossoming trees in the A.V. Fomin Botanical Garden, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 10, 2024. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

The extremely rare Kelvin-Helmholtz cloud formation lurking in the skies over Northumberland in North East England on December 5, 2023. The distinctive formation gets its name from scientists Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz who studied the physics behind the rare cloud. (Photo by Ian Davison/South West News Service)

A member of the Grupa Magnifica acrobatics club poses for a photo on the Baltic Sea beach during sunset in the town of Leba, Pomeranian region, on August 6, 2024. (Photo by Sergei Gapon/AFP Photo)

English actress Danielle Harold shot exclusively for the Sun on Sunday, September 7, 2023 in London. (Photo by Olivia West/The Sun)

Tourists visit teamLab Planets Tokyo in Tokyo on January 10, 2025. Japan on January 15 will announce tourist figures for the year 2024, widely expected to break the record set in 2019. (Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP Photo)

Chimpanzees are fascinated as bubbles are fired from a bubble gun at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone in the second decade of June 2024. The keepers used non-toxic soap liquid to create the bubble barrage. (Photo by Renato Granieri/Media Drum Images)

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 singer drinks from a huge bowl of beer on-stage as he pays tribute to the customers after performing at an entertainment club in Beijing, on May 8, 2014. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)