Didalus was a legendary craftsman of ancient Greek myth. It was said that he designed the

labyrinth on Crete, where King Minos kept the Minotaur. Unfortunately for Dietalus, since he was now

the only person who knew the passage through the labyrinth, King Minos imprisoned Diedelus and his young

son Icarus in a tower, so that he could not tell what he knew to anyone else.

Diedelus and Icarus could not leave the tower because it was guarded. And even if they could,

Crete was an island and they would not be permitted to board a ship.

Since escape by land or by sea was impossible,

Deedalus constructed wings made of feathers secured with wax.

For himself and his son.

They would escape the tower and the island, although Deedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sea lest the feathers get wet, nor too close to the sun, lest the wax melt.

Then they took off from the tower and flew over the sea toward mainland Greece.

You already know the rest of the story. Young Icarus, intoxicated with the thrill of flight,

swooped and soared and tried ever more daring maneuvers until, forgetting his father's warning,

he flew too close to the sun. The wax melted, the feathers fell off, and Icarus plunged to his death in a portion of the Aegean known to this day as the Icarian Sea.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century. Episode 47 Icarus Rising

The myth of Icarus persisted

past the fall of the ancient world

and it remains one of the most well-known and compelling of the old myths.

If you go online right now and do an

image search under Icarus, you will find depictions of this ill-fated youth from the ancient world

through the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment, through romanticism, and into modern times,

...