A Chinese man uses an old film camera to take a picture of relatives near the Forbidden City on March 27, 2014 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

North Korean children wave to people on a Chinese tourist boat on the banks of Yalu River near the Chongsong county of North Korea, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, May 8, 2011. (Photo by Jacky Chen/Reuters)

A man walks though Times Square in high heels during unseasonably warm weather on Christmas Eve in the Manhattan borough of New York December 24, 2015. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

A view of knitted Grenadier Guards figures made by members of the 'Hurst Hookers' knitting group after their fitting to posts during a pre-coronation 'yarn bombing' in the village of Hurst, near Reading, England, Friday, April 21, 2023. Heather Howarth and her friends in the village of Hurst, a stone’s throw from Reading, west of London, have fashioned a woolly coronation procession to rival the pomp and circumstance that will take place when Charles is crowned on May 6 at Westminster Abbey. (Photo by David Cliff/AP Photo)

Chunhun (R), the leader of Japan's North Korea fan club called sengun-joshi, or military-first girls, and other members practice a Moranbong Band dance in Tokyo, Japan on November 2, 2017. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

Traffic police stand at the side of a road in Pyongyang on November 25, 2016. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

Women perform under black fabric during a street performance in Pristina on October 6, 2017 against sexual harassments in Kosovo. (Photo by Armend Nimani/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.