Daedalus was a famous architect, inventor, and master craftsman. He was born in Athens, but banished from there for killing his nephew, who was so talented that it made him jealous. He murdered him by throwing him from the top of the Acropolis.

He fled to the island of Crete, where he began to work at the court of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae, in the magnificent palace of Knossos. There he built the Labyrinth to contain the monstrous half-man, half-bull called the Minotaur. For years Minos demanded a tribute of young men from Athens to feed the creature.

Eventually, the hero Theseus came to Crete to try to kill the Minotaur. Ariadne, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, fell in love with Theseus and asked Daedalus to help him. Daedalus gave her a flaxen thread for Theseus to tie to the door of the Labyrinth as he entered, and by which he could find his way out after killing the monster. Theseus succeeded, and escaped Crete with Ariadne. Minos, enraged at the loss of his daughter, not to mention the killing of the Minotaur, shut Daedalus and his son Icarus into the Labyrinth.

Daedalus managed to get out of the Labyrinth - after all, he had built it and knew his way around. Daedalus decided that he and his son Icarus had to leave Crete and get away from Minos. However, Minos controlled the sea around Crete and there was no way of escape there. Daedalus realized that the only way out was by air. To escape, Daedalus built wings for himself and Icarus, made with feathers held together with wax. Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, because it would melt his wings, and not too close to the sea, as it would dampen them and make it hard to fly. They successfully flew from Crete, but Icarus was excited by the thrill of flying and began getting careless. Flying too close to the sun god Helios, the wax holding together his wings melted from the heat and he fell to his death, drowning in the sea. The Icarian Sea, where he fell, was named after him and it is said that Heracles (Hercules), who passed by, gave him burial.

Daedalus wept over his dead son but then continued to Sicily, where he continued to invent clever solutions.