In Greek mythology, Theseus killed the Minotaur in the Labyrinth.
The Minotaur was a monster with a human body and a bull’s head, born to Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos of Crete. Minos kept it inside a Labyrinth designed by Daedalus. Athens was required to send young people to Crete as tribute, and Theseus volunteered to join the third group.
Ariadne, Minos’s daughter, helped Theseus by giving him a thread so he could retrace his route after entering the Labyrinth. Theseus found and killed the Minotaur, then escaped with the Athenian captives.
The myth is often simplified into a straightforward monster-slaying adventure, but its aftermath includes Theseus’s failure to change the ship’s black sails to white. His father, Aegeus, saw the black sails and believed Theseus had died, then threw himself into the sea that was afterward called the Aegean.