American rapper Saweetie performs at the European MTV Awards in Budapest, Hungary, Sunday, November 14, 2021. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP Photo)

A woman visits St Savior in Chora church, known as Kariye in Turkish, in Istanbul, Friday, August 21, 2020. Turkey on Friday formally converted former Byzantine church, St Savior in Chora, into a mosque, a month after it similarly turned Istanbul's landmark Hagia Sophia into a Muslim house of prayer, drawing international rebuke. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

I had to stay late at work, Chubut, Argentina. “South sea elephant in Patagonia (Isla Escondida) They adopt very curious gestures!”. (Photo by Luis Burgue/Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2020)

Vanessa, thirty-five, had three children with an abusive husband. She “lost her mind, started doing heroin”, after losing the children, who were taken away and given to her mother. The drugs led to homelessness and prostitution. She grew up on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, but now spends her time in Hunts Point, “trying to survive everyday. Just doing whatever it takes”.

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.

In this photo taken Friday, September 4, 2015, tourists Sarah and John Scott from Worcester, England, take a step back as a male silverback mountain gorilla from the family of mountain gorillas named Amahoro, which means “peace” in the Rwandan language, unexpectedly steps out from the bush to cross their path in the dense forest on the slopes of Mount Bisoke volcano in Volcanoes National Park, northern Rwanda. Deep in Rwanda's steep-sloped forest, increasing numbers of tourists are heading to see the mountain gorillas, a subspecies whose total population is an estimated 900 and who also live in neighboring Uganda and Congo, fueling an industry seen as key to the welfare of the critically endangered species as well as Rwanda's economy. (Photo by Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

Sasha Muir and Margaret Davidson sit in a car as some of the 30 barbary macaques, known as the Middle Hill Troop after living between the top of Gibraltar rock and the town, show what happens when motorists forget to lock their luggage compartments, as Scotland’s only monkey drive-through section opens at Blair Drummond safari park in Stirling, Scotland on October 8, 2015. (Photo by Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

Soldiers use electronic sensors to search for missing firefighters under a line of fire trucks caught in massive gas explosions in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Friday, August 1, 2014. A series of underground explosions about midnight Thursday and early Friday ripped through Taiwan's second-largest city, killing scores of people, Taiwan's National Fire Agency said Friday. (Photo by Wally Santana/AP Photo)