Peleus, the king of Myrmidons was marrying a sea nymph named Thetis. Many gods attended the wedding, but Eris wasn’t invited because she was the goddess of discord and bound to cause trouble. Angry at being excluded, Eris decided to disrupt the wedding banquet by throwing a golden apple for the “fairest” among the guests.

The three goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite bickered about who was the fairest and decided to ask Zeus to decide the matter. Zeus didn’t want to get involved so he sent them to a price named Paris. Despite Paris’ heritage, he was raised as a simple shepherd after his mother learned in a vision that he would cause the destruction of Troy. Paris gave the apple to Aphrodite, after she promised to give him the most beautiful woman in the world.

There was one problem. The most beautiful woman, Helen, in the world was already married to Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae. Menelaus and Helen welcomed Paris as a guest to Sparta. Then Menelaus left Sparta for a while and when he returned, Helen was gone with Paris. Menelaus was furious and attacked Troy. One thousand Greek ships set sail for Troy.

The Greeks besieged Troy for ten years. After the deaths of Achilles and another hero, Ajax, the Greeks wanted to give up and go home, but the king of Ithaca, Odysseus, came up with a plan to get the Greek army into the Troy. They built an immense wooden horse and the Greek warriors hid inside it. They left the horse at the gates of Troy and sailed away.

The Trojans thought the Greeks had given up and had left the horse as a gift. Despite warnings from priests, King Priam, refused to listen and the horse was brought inside the walls of Troy. That night, the Greek ships quietly returned and the soldiers in the horse slipped out and opened the city gates. They started fires in the city. The Trojans woke to find their city burning. When they tried to flee, they were massacred by Greek soldiers. King Priam and almost all of the other Trojan chiefs were killed.