Ostriches wear masks as they are transported by a truck for relocation in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, August 8, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

People wearing and holding helmets take part in a drill simulating a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Tokyo, Japan, August 26, 2016. The drill was held in Ginza, a high-end shopping and business district, and held ahead of the 93rd anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 which claimed at least 100,000 casualties. It was one of the largest natural disasters in recorded history and since 1960, September 1st, and the period around that date has been declared as national disaster prevention awareness period. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

A Libyan fireman stands in front of smoke and flames rising from an oil storage tank at an oil facility in northern Libya's Ras Lanouf region on January 23, 2016, after it was set ablaze earlier in the week following attacks launched by Islamic State (IS) group jihadists to seize key port terminals. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

An Indian street vendor selling bananas naps on his fruit cart at the roadside in New Delhi on June 3, 2015. (Photo by Money Sharma/AFP Photo)

The Thufa hill in Reykjavik, Friday, October 28, 2016. Parliamentary elections will be held in Iceland on October 29, 2016, more than 250,000 voters are called to elect the new parliament, 63 members of the Althing parliament. (Photo by Frank Augstein/AP Photo)

CHINA: Customers eat at a restaurant as a cooked pig sits on a cart on the street outside in Hong Kong, China, December 12, 2016. (Photo by David Gray/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.

People visit an art installation “Alley of Flying Umbrellas” in central St. Petersburg, Russia, May 15, 2015. Art installation inspired by “Umbrella Sky Project” of Portuguese town of Agueda and was made of 500 colored umbrellas. (Photo by Anatoly Maltsev/EPA)