“Misty Morning”. Every morning, people expect sunny weather. Photo location: Bali, Indonesia. (Photo and caption by Henry Adam/National Geographic Photo Contest)

“Eye of a toad”. Animal Portraits, Łukasz Bożycki, Poland. Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. “I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians”, he says, “at water level”. Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was “the glorious pool of sunset colour” and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Nikon D80 + 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens + extension tube; 1/125 sec at f9 (-2.3 e/v); ISO 100; built-in flash. (Photo by Łukasz Bożycki)

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.

Revelers dance at the Old Settler's Music Festival in Driftwood, Texas, U.S. on April 22, 2017. (Photo by Mohammad Khursheed/Reuters)

Musicians of the alphorn band "Holdersberger Alp- Traum- Blaeser" perform their skills on a raft floating on the Elbsee lake near Aitrang, southern Germany, on June 11, 2017. (Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP Photo/DPA)

Leonhard Nienbling is shown with his 6-month old pet baboon Jackl, who holds a 6-month old kitten, its playmate, June 29, 1952. Niebling has quite an animal collection at his home in Zirndorf, Germany. (Photo by Heinrich Sanden/AP Photo)

The nearly four-week-old Tapir cub bathes on June 28, 2016 in Gondwanaland at the zoo in Leipzig, Saxony. (Photo by Jan Woitas/DPA)

Valery Bystritskii, 10, gets a fellow student into a lock at Bunny's Gym in July 2015 in Winchester, Tennessee. (Photo by Mike Saliba/Barcroft USA)