Newcastle United's Swiss defender #05 Fabian Schar heads the ball during the English League Cup semi-final second leg football match between Newcastle United and Arsenal at St James' Park, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, north east England, on February 5, 2025. (Photo by Paul Ellis/AFP Photo)

Students of Rabindrabharati University apply colour dust or Gulal on each other during a celebration the festival of colour Holi in Kolkata, Eastern India, 23 March 2024. Holi, also known as the Festival of Colors, is an ancient Hindu festival symbolizing the victory of good over evil and marking the arrival of spring. It is observed with joyful gatherings during which revelers cover each other in colored powders. (Photo by Piyal Adhikary/EPA/EFE)

On the afternoon of the June 12, 2025, a couple wearing black dresses took wedding photos at Dadaepo Beach in Saha-gu, Busan. (Photo by Kim Dong-hwan)

Children play marbles on the dirt in Garut, West Java, Indonesia on October 17, 2025. This traditional game, which was popular in the 1980s, is now rarely played by children due to the increasing popularity of modern games with advanced technology. According to a survey by the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI), more than 71.3% of school-age children own gadgets and play them for a considerable amount of time each day, and as many as 79% of child respondents are allowed to play gadgets for purposes other than learning. (Photo by Algi Febri Sugita/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A Turkana man and a boy carrying a gun look on as a G3 battle rifle hangs from a structure used to dry fish at a fishing camp on the shores of Lake Turkana, some kilometres from Todonyang near the Kenya-Ethiopia border in northwestern Kenya October 12, 2013The Turkana are traditionally nomadic pastoralists, but they have seen the pasture that they need to feed their herds suffer from recurring droughts and many have turned to fishing. However, Lake Turkana is overfished, and scarcity of food and pastureland is fuelling long-standing conflict with Ethiopian indigenous Dhaasanac, who have seen grazing grounds squeezed by large-scale government agricultural schemes in southern Ethiopia. The Dhaasanac now venture ever deeper into Kenyan territory in search of fish and grass, clashing with neighbours. Fighting between the communities has a long history, but the conflict has become ever more fatal as automatic weapons from other regional conflicts seep into the area. While the Turkana region is short of basics like grass and ground-water, it contains other resources including oil reserves and massive, newly discovered underground aquifers. (Photo by Siegfried Modola/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.

Buddhist novice poses for a picture while monks gather to receive alms at Wat Phra Dhammakaya temple, in what organizers said was a meeting of over 100,000 monks, in Pathum Thani, outside Bangkok April 22, 2016. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

Yang Juan, an employee at Goopal Group, takes a nap in her seat after lunch, in Beijing, China, April 21, 2016. Office workers sleeping on the job is a common sight in China, where a surplus of cheap labour can lead to downtime at work. But in China's technology sector, where business is growing faster than many start-up firms can hire new staff, workers burn the midnight oil to meet deadlines and compete with their rivals. Some companies provide sleeping areas and beds for workers to rest during late nights. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)