An individual or a people, or how we should tell our story

We all know that. "The City I was baptized in 966". "Wladyslaw Jagiełło defeated the Teutonic Knights under Grunwald in 1410". "Stanisław August Poniatowski abdicated in 1795". "Józef Piłsudski became chief of the reborn Poland in 1918". "Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law on December 13, 1981". "President Lech Kaczyński died in disaster on April 10, 2010". most likely [...]