Examples of Greek Myths

The legends and examples of Greek myths have lasted the test of time. From the beginnings of antiquity to the present, many examples of Greek myths have managed to filter down into modern society.

Examples of Greek Myths

Myth of Narcissus

Narcissus, an exceedingly handsome young boy, was the son of a blue nymph and a river god. While hunting in the forest he heard footsteps; but, he did not see a nymph named Echo. When he asked who was there, Echo's reply was the same as what he asked. When she embraced Narcissus, he pulled away abruptly and walked away. She felt crushed and heartbroken. She prayed to Venus, the love goddess, to avenge Narcissus' rejection. As punishment, Venus made Naricssus fall in love only with himself.

Myth of Prometheus

In this famous Greek Myth, Prometheus, a powerful deity known as a Titan, decided to give the gift of fire to mankind. Zeus punished him, forcing him to be tortured for the rest of eternity!

Myth of Hercules

Hercules (known in Greek as Herakles) was a half-god, the son of Zeus. He is known for his many adventures, such as the defeat of the nine-headed Hydra, capturing the Erymanthian Boar, clashing with a giant known as Antaeus, and stealing cattle from a fearsome monster.

Myth of Pandora's Box

According to myth, Pandora was a tempter of mankind. She was given a box as a gift but told not to open it. When she disobeyed, all of the evil in all of the world was released to harm humans.

Myth of Zeus

Zeus is the Father of the Gods on Mount Olympus. He became the King after a clash with the Titans. His brothers were said to be Poseidon, the King of the Sea, and Hades, the King of the Underworld.

Myth of Creation

The universe was in chaos, and from that chaos was born the Earth, Night and Day. Uranus, the sky, was the first god, and had 13 powerful children called Titans. One of them, Kronos, eventually overthrew Uranus to become King.

Myth of Theseus

Theseus was said to be the founder of Athens, the capital city of Greece. When children from Athens were being sacrificed to a beast called a Minotaur, Theseus offered to go into the beast's lair (known as the Labyrinth) to slay the Minotaur and rescue the children.

Myth of Ares

According to this myth, Ares is the God of War. He was a very feared god because of the death and destruction that he caused with his two sons, Fear and Panic. Not even his own father, Zeus, approved of him.

Myth of Jason and the Argonauts

Jason was a hero, a very good-looking and charming man who was very handy with a sword. He had a strong vessel built called the Argo, and his crew, the Argonauts, went on a dangerous expedition to the far-away land of Kolhida.

Myth of Odysseus

In a famous epic by Homer, Odysseus was King of Ithaca. He was displaced by the Trojan War and over ten years made his way back to his homeland. The journey was difficult and included clashes with monsters like the mighty Cyclops.

Myth of Pan

Pan was a god who had the legs and the horns of a goat. He was laughed at by the other gods, so he left to live in the forest, where according to myth he plays the flute and sings in a loud, beautiful voice.

These different myths are all famous stories that taught lessons and that remain well-known to this day.

Bizarre Deformed "Unicorn" Found In Slovenia

No, unfortunately this isn’t a unicorn skull, but it’s probably the closest you’ll get aside from putting a pony in fancy dress. It is genuine, however, and belonged to a roe deer in Slovenia.
Antler deformities are fairly common in deer, and although there are a variety of possible causes for these developmental abnormalities, the majority are thought to be caused by an injury. This could be a bash to a buck’s skull or pedicle --the permanent outgrowth from which the antler develops-- sustained during a fight, or even an injury to a deer’s hind leg.
Antler abnormalities come in all shapes and sizes, but this particular example is highly unusual. So much so, that it piqued the interest of biologist Boštjan Pokorny, who had never seen anything like it before.
Normally, Pokorny explains to National Geographic, roe deer antlers are symmetrical and grow from two separate pedicles, but this particular buck’s pedicles appear to have merged into one. It’s not uncommon to see a deer with only one antler, which is known as a “spike,” because they can be lost in a number of ways. This buck is different, however, as it had a rare deformity, which likely resulted from an injury early in the antlers’ development.
Having just one antler may seem disadvantageous since bucks fight each other and attract females with these bony structures during mating season, but this animal grew to a ripe old age and was above average weight when it died. According to Pokorny, this is probably because mating success is largely based on the male’s age and body size in roe deer, so it wouldn’t have needed an impressive set of antlers.
Antlers are pretty fascinating things. Rather than consisting of a combination of keratin and bone, like almost all animal horns, antlers are fashioned entirely of bone. Rhinoceroses are an exception as their horns are composed entirely of keratin, the stuff that our hair and nails are made of. Furthermore, unlike horns which are permanent, antlers are normally grown and shed in a yearly cycle.
For many species of deer, antler growth is stimulated by a boost in testosterone levels which is triggered by longer periods of sunlight in spring and summer. During spring, the growing antler is mostly composed of soft tissue and is covered by a fuzzy layer of skin known as velvet. At this stage, the antler is very sensitive to injury, and knocks or kicks can lead to developmental abnormalities.
During the summer months, growth dramatically accelerates and some antlers can increase in length by as much as 2 inches per week. As the antlers approach their definitive shape, growth rate slows dramatically and the outer layer starts to mineralize into compact bone. When the breeding season is over, the area of bone where the pedicle meets the antler is broken down by cells called osteoclasts, which eventually causes them to drop.
[Via National Geographic]
 

10 Mysterious places around the world that are hard to explain...

Earth never stops surprising us. Every corner of the planet offers some sort of natural peculiarity with an explanation that makes us wish we'd studied harder in junior high Earth science class.
Some of these sites are challenging to get to; others are busy tourist destinations. They keep natural scientists searching for answers and the rest of us astounded by the secrets and mysteries the world continues to reveal.

Blood Falls, Antarctica

Photo: National Science Foundation Most people won't see Blood Falls in person, but even in photographs, the sight is arresting: a blood-red waterfall staining the snow-white face of Taylor Glacier. Glaciologists and microbiologists have sought to determine what causes the mysterious red flow. They've concluded that the source is a subterranean lake rich in the iron that gives the water its red hue. Stranger still, recent research has revealed microorganisms living 1,300 feet beneath the ice, sustained by the iron and sulfur in the water.

Magnetic Hill, Moncton, New Brunswick

Photo: Parks Canada Agency What could possibly cause an automobile to roll backward uphill without power? A magnetic force from within the Earth? Something even more fantastic? Since the 1930s, when the phenomenon of Magnetic Hill was discovered (and almost immediately promoted as a tourist attraction), people have been trying to figure out its riddle.

Surtsey, Iceland

Photo: Getty Images / Gerard Gery When people try to convince you there's nothing new under the sun, direct them to the Icelandic island of Surtsey. Before 1963, it didn't exist. Then, an underwater volcano in the Westman Islands (Vestmannaeyjar) erupted, and when the activity settled down in 1967, what remained was an island where no island had been before.

Moeraki Boulders, New Zealand

Photo: Karsten Sperling Large spherical boulders -- some measuring 12 feet in circumference -- are scattered on Koekohe Beach on the east coast of New Zealand's South Island. They formed millions of years ago on the ancient sea floor, collecting and hardening sediment and minerals around a core such as a fossil or a shell similar to the way oysters form pearls.
They're not the world's only examples of what geologists call septarian concretions. You can also visit the Koutu Boulders near Hokianga Harbour on the northwestern coast of New Zealand's North Island, for example. Yet the Moeraki Boulders are some of the world's largest. The particulars of their origin and what caused the distinctive cracks inside them are still being studied.

Longyearbyen, Norway

Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images From April 20 to August 23, the sun never sets over Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago that lies north of Greenland in the Arctic Sea. The phenomenon plays havoc with everyone's body clocks. Is it noon? Is it midnight? After a day or two, it's hard to tell.

Pamukkale, Turkey

Photo: Getty Images What appears to be a Doctor Zhivago-style snowy landscape in southwestern Turkey is actually the result of calcium carbonate deposits from 17 natural hot springs accumulating over thousands of years. Beginning in the late second century B.C., this area near present-day Denizli was a destination for those who sought the therapeutic benefits of the mineral-rich water whose temperature reaches upward of 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Today, you can see remnants of the baths at the ancient holy city of Hierapolis, but it's the stunning terraces, cliffs and petrified white waterfalls of Pamukkale -- Turkish for "Cotton Palace" -- that give it remarkable natural beauty.

Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, California

Photo: Getty Images How ordinary stones manage to "sail" over the surface of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park is a mystery people have tried to solve since 1915, when a prospector and his wife noticed tracks that seemed to indicate that the stones had somehow traveled across the dry earth. Short of cosmic intervention, the stones required terrestrial forces to move them.
But what forces? The current prevailing theory about the "sailing stones" of Racetrack Playa, presented by a team of physicists in 2011, involves ice that forms around the stones, causing them to move and to leave a trail in their wake. Many visitors still hope for a more mystical explanation.

Eternal Flame Falls, Orchard Park, New York

Photo: MPMA Jewski Behind the cascade of a small waterfall in the Shale Creek Preserve section of Chestnut Ridge Park in suburban Buffalo, New York, you might see what appears to be an optical illusion: a flickering golden flame. Actually, you'll smell it before you see it, and amazingly, it's real, fueled by what geologists call a macroseep of natural gas from the Earth below.
A geological fault in the shale allows about 1 kilogram of methane gas per day to escape to the surface, where, at some point, possibly the early 20th century, a visitor had the idea to set it alight. The water occasionally extinguishes the flame, but there's always another hiker with a lighter to reignite it.

Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park

Photo: AFP / Getty Images / Mark Ralston Yellowstone National Park claims the highest concentration of geysers of any place on Earth. Geysers are hot springs with plumbing challenges that result in eruptions. More than 300 can be found throughout the park, and none is more famous than Old Faithful. In fact, Old Faithful is the reason Yellowstone was designated a National Park -- the first in the United States -- in 1872.
Its name comes from the perceived regularity of its eruptions, which occur every 55 to 120 minutes and last for two to five minutes. The spectacular eruptions remain a source of fascination for the more than 3.5 million people who visit Yellowstone each year. The fact that the eruptions aren't quite as regular as they might seem -- and that the mean eruption interval seems to be lengthening -- keeps geologists fascinated, too.

Relampago del Catatumbo, Ologa, Venezuela

Photo: Wikipedia Commons Thanks to its humidity, its elevation and the clash of winds from the mountains and the sea, the southwestern corner of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela has the world's highest frequency of lightning activity (250 flashes per square kilometer per year).
More than 200 nights per year, with peaks in May and October, lightning flashes fill the sky -- sometimes 25 or more flashes per minute. To put that in perspective: The National Weather Service classifies anything over 12 strikes per minute as "excessive." Named for the Catatumbo River, which flows from Colombia in to Lake Maracaibo, the Relampago de Catatumbo, or Catatumbo Lighting, has become a highlight for travelers who spend their nights wide awake and wide-eyed watching the spectacle.
Source: CNN.com

Dead weird: After the 'atomic wedgie' here are 21 of history's most bizarre deaths

The Mirror's Rachael Bletchly looks at some of the strangest ways people have ended up meeting their maker

Can there be a weirder way of meeting your maker than being wedgied to death?

The lifeless body of one Denver St Clair, 58, was found dead with the waistband of his underpants wrapped around his neck.

Cops believe soldier Brad Davis, 33, suffocated his stepdad during a boozy row by pulling his underpants elastic over his head in an “atomic wedgie.”            

The case has astonished police investigators in Oklahoma, USA, but it’s certainly not the strangest way anyone has ever departed this life. As we discover today...

Whiskered away

Austrian Hans Steininger was famed for having the world’s longest beard: 4.5ft (nearly 1.4m) long.
But one day in 1567 there was a fire in his home town of Braunau.
In his haste to escape the he forgot to roll up his beard (which he used to stuff into a leather pouch).
He tripped over it, broke his neck, and died.

Moon liver

In the year 763, starry-eyed poet Li Bai, 63, tried to kiss the reflection of the moon in the water next to his boat, fell overboard and drowned.
His liking for liquor may have proved a factor.
One of his poems was Alone and Drinking Under the Moon.

Serves him bite

Sigurd the Mighty, second Viking Earl of Orkney, decapitated his enemy Mael Brigte and put the head on his horse’s saddle as a trophy.
But the teeth grazed his leg as??he rode, causing a fatal infection in 92 BC.

Bitter sweet: The Boston Molasses Disaster

Sticky end

The Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919 killed 21 people and hurt 150 when a tank holding more than a million gallons of the stuff exploded.
The blast sent a sticky wave through the city at a speed of 35mph.

Fatal flambé

Charles II of Navarre was wrapped in brandy-soaked linen when he fell ill in 1387.
But the servant sewing him in forgot her scissors and used a candle to cut the thread.
When it all went up in flames she scarpered, leaving him to burn alive.

Casket case

French undertaker Marc Bourjade died when a pile of coffins in his workshop fell on him in 1982.
He was buried in one of the same caskets.

Dying for a wee

Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe died at 54 in Prague in 1601.
His bladder burst and he developed an infection because leaving the table at a banquet to relieve himself would have breached etiquette.

Dying for a Wii

Jennifer Strange, 28, of California died of water intoxication trying to win a Nintendo Wii console in a radio contest in 2007.
Called “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contestants had to drink as much water as possible without going to the loo.

Clowning around

 William Snyder of Cincinnati died at 13 in 1854.
His death certificate said he was “killed by being swung around by the heels by a circus clown.”

Sparked out

Murderer Michael Anderson Godwin escaped the electric chair but was electrocuted anyway.
Serving life in 1983, he tried to fix his TV headphones while sitting on a steel-rimmed loo in his South Carolina cell.
He bit into a wire and and was killed at once.

Ass the way to go

In 207 BC the Greek philosopher Chrysippus died laughing – after getting his donkey drunk on wine and watching it try to eat figs.

Unlucky strike

In 1981 Paul Gauchi, 41, from Malta, made himself a mallet by welding an old tin can on to a metal pipe.
The can turned out to be a wartime butterfly bomb, which exploded and killed him.

Goodie way to go: Alex Mitchell died from laughter

Ecky-Slump

In 1975, Alex Mitchell from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, laughed so hard at the Ecky-Thump episode of hit BBC comedy The Goodies that he died of a heart failure.
His widow later wrote to the stars of the show to thank them for making her husband’s last minutes of life so happy.

Dead winger

In 2001 Roger Wallace was killed by by his own radio-controlled plane.
He lost sight of it in the Arizona sun and it smashed into his head at 40mph.

Pigged out

In 2012 Oregon farmer Terry Vance Garner, 69, went out to feed his pigs – but they ate him instead.
Nothing but his dentures and a few pieces of his body were found.
Investigators believe he fell over and passed out first, possibly after a heart attack.

Fatal four-play

Five of Nigerian polygamist Uroko Onoja’s six wives brandished knives and sticks and forced him to have sex with them one after the other.
He managed four of them, but then collapsed dead.

Jaws of disaster

In 2010, 20 crew and passengers died in a plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
One traveller was smuggling a crocodile in a sports bag but it freed itself in mid-air and everyone ran towards the flight deck in a panic.
The tiny Filair plane was left hopelessly unbalanced and went into a terminal dive, despite the lack of any technical failure.
Only one passenger survived. And the crocodile.

Downfall: Chelsea Tumbleston and Brent Tyler

Eave of destruction

Lovebirds Brent Tyler and Chelsea Tumbleston, both 21, fell 50ft from a rooftop in South Carolina while in the throes on passionate sex in 2007.
Their naked bodies were found in the road by a taxi driver.

Splurger King

Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden, ate himself to death in 1771, gorging on lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne, plus 14 servings of pudding in hot milk.

Barking sad

A dog fell out of a 13th floor window in Buenos Aires and killed a woman of 75.
Several onlookers were hit by a bus and another woman died.
A male witness then died at the scene after a heart attack.

Getty

Catch: A Diamondback rattlesnake

Scales of justice

Joe Buddy Caine, 35, died in Anniston, Alabama in 1995 when he and a friend got drunk and played catch with a rattlesnake.
The snake bit them both, but Caine was the only fatality.

 

12 Spooky Abandoned Hospitals and Asylums

Central State Hospital, Milledgeville, Georgia

 

Once clean and sterile, these abandoned hospitals and asylums are left in crumbling ruins and exposed to the elements.  Some people find these places creepy, others find them beautiful, but all agree that these now-silent structures, many of them historic, have a haunting, eerie appeal. (Note: Most of these sites are on private property and may be covered by trespass laws.) What causes the decay in these structures? In his reports from abandoned cities such as Chernobyl, Ukraine and Varosha, Cyprus for his best-selling book "The World Without Us," Alan Weisman wrote that structures crumble as weather does unrepaired damage and other life forms create new habitats. A common structure, such as a building, would begin to fall apart as water eventually erodes the wood and rusts the nails.
The site of a once thriving mental hospital is now home to over 200 crumbling buildings shadowed by the ghosts of its past. The Central State Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia once was the epicenter of the community but now sits in disarray after its closing in 1974. The hospital was built in 1842 and at one point housed as many as 13,000 patients, according to the Associated Press, and at its height operated like a small city. Forty years of decay and neglect have left most of the buildings in poor condition. The ceilings and roofs of some have crumbled and nature has taken over and reclaimed the land. On a recent trip to the hospital, photographer Johnny Joo, an architectural explorer, captured the state of the hospital in these haunting images.

St. John’s Hospital, Lincolnshire, England

 

More than a hundred years of history are contained in the decaying walls of St. John's Hospital, a former mental asylum in Lincolnshire, England, which closed its doors in 1989. Built in 1852, the hospital was originally called the Lincolnshire County Lunatic Asylum, and was originally built to house 250 "penniless lunatics." Through the years, the hospital expanded its grounds to 120 acres, and included its own mortuary chapel, gardens, farmland and a burial ground, according to AsylumProjects.org. Photographers and urban explorers who visit the hospital note the grand Y-shaped staircase and cramped cells. Last year, local media outlet This is Lincolnshire reported that a property development firm has plans to build 68 news houses and 30 senior living properties on the site.

 

Beelitz-Heilstätten Sanatorium, Beelitz, Germany

 

A large complex of about 60 buildings, the tuberculosis-sanatorium-turned-military-hospital Beelitz-Heilstätten was built in phases between 1890 and 1938. The site in the Beelitzer forest was chosen for accessibility from Berlin and the area's fresh, smoke- and dust-free air, which would be therapeutic for patients, according to SlowTravelBerlin.com. As a military hospital, well-known historical figures passed through its now-crumbling doors. In October and November 1916, Adolf Hitler recuperated at Beelitz-Heilstätten after being wounded in the leg at the Battle of the Somme, and in December 1990 Erich Honecker was admitted to hospital after being forced to resign as the head of the East German government. The complex was completely abandoned in 2000.

 

 

Mercy Hospital, Liberty, Texas

 

 Built in 1930, the then-named Liberty Hospital became the Mercy Hospital when the Sisters of St. Francis took over in 1935. The nuns took care of the patients and lived on the premises, according the Liberty County Vindicator, and a chapel, nursery and delivery room were later built. The hospital closed its doors in 1963, and it was demolished in 2010.

 

 

Pripyat Hospital, Pripyat, Ukraine

 

 Pripyat Hospital in Ukraine once served thousands of families of men and women who worked at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear plant, and it received the first victims of the catastrophic nuclear power plant accident on April 26, 1986. It now lies in ruins, as if frozen in time—its rusty cribs still stand in the maternity ward, and doctors’ appointment boards still hang in the reception area. There are even drugs still laying scattered around, according to UK newspaper, the Daily Mail. The hospital, like the city's abandoned amusement park, is just one of the remnants of the nuclear ghost town that is Pripyat.

 

 

Cane Hill Hospital, Croydon, England

 

 When the Cane Hill Hospital (then called Surrey County Pauper Lunatic Asylum) opened in 1883, it was the largest institution of its type in the UK. Designed to be a self-sufficient community, the hospital had its own fire station, water tower, a farm and vegetable garden with greenhouses, according to AsylumProjects.org.  In its 130-year history (the hospital closed in 1991) patients related to famous people reportedly checked in to Cane Hill, including Charlie Chaplin’s mother.  Many of the buildings on the 83-hectare site were demolished in 2008. In 2010, a fire destroyed all but the front façade of the hospital

 

Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, New Jersey

 

Greystone opened as the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum in 1876 as a state-of-the-art mental health facility, according to the Star-Ledger.  Later renamed to Greystone Park in 1924, the hospital suffered from overpopulation. Four years after it opened, it was already accommodating 800 patients in a facility designed for 600.  In 2000, it was announced the hospital was closing in 2003, not only due to aging buildings but also to negative press. There were accounts of sexual assault in a hospital elevator, patients committing suicide, patients becoming pregnant, and a twice-convicted rapist escaping. The eerie complex served as a setting for TV shows like "House" and movies like "Marvin's Room."

 

Severalls Mental Hospital, Colchester, England

 

 Opened in 1913, the 300-acre Severalls Hospital housed some 2000 patients and was built with a network of interconnecting corridors (staff were able to operate around the site without the need to go outside in bad weather). In her book Madness in Its Place: Narratives of Severalls Hospital, 1913-1997, Diana Gittins noted that there were women admitted and subjected to electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) and lobotomy. The structures at the hospital, which closed in 1997, have since suffered greatly from vandalism. In 2005, arson destroyed the main hall.

 

 

Abandoned clinic at the University of Kiel, Germany

 

 Photographer and Flickr user Jan Bommes captured these images of an abandoned clinic at the University of Kiel in Germany, the the largest, oldest, and most prestigious university in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. According to Bommes, the clinic was part of the university's Department of Neurosurgery.

 

 

 

Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital, NYC

 

 Built in 1838 from Tuckahoe marble that may have been quarried by prisoners from the Sing Sing, according to the Navy Yard museum, the 60,000-square-foot Brooklyn Navy Yard hospital features a Greek revival style that is now succumbing to nature’s elements. Last year, the New York Times reported that Steiner Studios have committed $345 million to transform the hospital complex into a high-tech media hub.

 

Linda Vista Hospital, Los Angeles, Calif.

 

 Originally called the Santa Fe Railroad Hospital, the abandoned (and many say, haunted) Linda Vista Hospital in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of L.A. opened in 1905 and closed in 1991 due to a decline in the quality of care as doctors moved to other hospitals.  The six-story complex has since been the center of many paranormal investigations and has a popular filming location for many horror-themed movies.  Developers are planning to convert the hospital into apartments for low-income seniors, according to the Los Angeles Times

 

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Renwick Smallpox Hospital, Roosevelt Island, New York

 

 Designed by architect James Renwick, the 100-bed Renwick Smallpox Hospital (later called the Maternity and Charity Hospital Training School) opened in New York City's Roosevelt island in 1856. It was the first hospital in the country to admit victims of contagion and plague, and was the only hospital in NYC to receive cases of smallpox, according to the Roosevelt Island Historical Society. Renwick's design for the hospital featured unusual triangular arches for the windows and a tower-like structure in the building's center (complete with Gothic details). The building was abandoned in the early 1950s. In 2008, as it was awaiting structural stabilization, parts of the hospital's gray stone facade collapsed due to the effects of cycles of freezing and thawing, according to the New York Times.