What Is A Myth?

A myth is a made-up story that explains the existence of a natural phenomenon — such as where thunder comes from or why snow falls from the sky. Myths — which often include gods and goddesses and other supernatural characters who have the power to make extraordinary things happen — are popular even when people know the actual reasons for natural phenomena. In other words a myth is

A myth is a story with a purpose. It tries to explain the way the world is. Myths also try to explain the relationship between gods and humans. Even though the events in a myth are usually impossible, they try to send a message that has an important social or religious meaning.

People have always tried to figure out common questions like who made the universe or questions like what causes a storm. Religion, gods, and myths were created when people tried to make sense out of these questions. For early people myths were like science because they explain how things work. They also explained other questions that are now answered through modern science.

A myth is a story with a purpose. It tries to explain the way the world is. Myths also try to explain the relationship between gods and humans. Even though the events in a myth are usually impossible, they try to send a message that has an important social or religious meaning.

People have always tried to figure out common questions like who made the universe or questions like what causes a storm. Religion, gods, and myths were created when people tried to make sense out of these questions. For early people myths were like science because they explain how things work. They also explained other questions that are now answered through modern science.

Example :

• The Ghost Pilots of Times Square
  He had just graduated from Harvard University and was living in Manhattan. He loved the city and was beginning to feel at home on its streets. World War II was raging in Europe, and like all other good citizens, he followed the headlines daily and did his part for the boys overseas. Hugging his jacket close, he stood shivering at the corner, waiting for the light to change and wondering where his enlisted friends might be staying on that cold winter night..

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Historical Inventor

Madam C. J. Walker was born on December 23, 1867 in Delta, Louisiana, the daughter of Owen and Minerva Breedlove. Her parents were former slaves working as sharecroppers and both died when Sarah was a child. As a result, Sarah was forced to move from one household to another. At age seven, she moved in with her sister Louvina and her husband. After suffering abuse from Louvina's husband, Sarah ran away and married Moses McWilliams when she was 14 years old. In 1885, she gave birth to their daughter Lelia. Two years later, Moses was murdered by a White lynch mob..

After this tragedy, Sarah moved with her daughter to St. Louis, Missouri where she worked as a cook and housecleaner. Unfortunately, all of the stress and hardship had begun to take its toll on her and she found her hair falling out. She tried several products which claimed would help her condition but to no avail. At this point Sarah had a dream in which a "big Black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up for my hair. Some of the remedy was grown in Africa, but I sent for it, put it on my scalp, and in a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it had ever fallen out." After she shared her formula with some friends and found it successful for them as well, she realized that there were almost no hair products available for Blacks. She therefore decided to go into business, selling hair products to Black women.

In 1905 Sarah's brother died and she moved to Denver, Colorado to live with her sister-in-law. When she arrived in Denver she had only $2.00 in her pocket yet she worked during the day as a cook in order to finance her part time business. At this point she met Charles Joseph "C.J." Walker, a newspaperman with an innate ability for marketing. She married Walker on January 4, 1906 and the couple set up the "Madam CJ Walker Manufacturing Company" and began placing advertisements in Black newspapers throughout the United States. Although they proved a successful team, they disagreed as to how much the company should grow. After years of struggling and suffering, Sarah wanted her company to grow immensely and divorced him in order to devote herself to the business (he stayed on as a sales agent for the company.). She continued on with many of the ideas he had passed on to her, including going door-to-door to sell the products. Her hard work paid off and in 1906 she brought her daughter Lelia, a recent college graduate, in to manage the company.

While Lelia ran much of the company, Sarah traveled across the country and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean marketing the products and developing new ones. She also sought to bring more women into the company, desiring to empower them and give them a way of rising above the constraints set by a male dominated society.

In 1908, Sarah started Lelia College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which trained women to sell her products door-to-door and by 1910 had more than 1,000 sales agents. In that year, she moved the company's headquarters to Indianapolis, Indiana and soon the company grew beyond anyone's expectations. By 1914, the woman who only nine years earlier had only $2.00 to her name was now worth more than one million dollars. Her products ranged from hair conditioners and facial creams to hot combs specially made for the hair of Black consumers.

After her early suffering and poverty plagued existence, Sarah McWilliams had looked for a way out and as Madam C.J. Walker was able to purchase a 34 room mansion built off of the Hudson River in New York. When she died on May 25, 1919, she was mourned throughout the Black community as a pioneer and a Black industrialist. For many women, White and Black, however, she had served as an inspiration and a role model.

Henrietta Lacks

Henrietta Lacks was mother of five, native of rural southern Virginia, resident of the Turner Station neighborhood in Dundalk she went to Johns Hopkins Hospital with a worrisome symptom. spotting on her underwear. She was quickly diagnosed with cervical cancer. Eight months later, despite surgery and radiation treatment, the Sparrows Point shipyard worker's wife died at age 31 as she lay in the hospital's segregated ward for blacks.

Not all of Henrietta Lacks died that October morning, though. She unwittingly left behind a piece of herself that still lives today. While she was in Hopkins' care, researchers took a fragment of Lacks' tumor and sliced it into little cubes, which they bathed in nutrients and placed in an incubator. The cells, dubbed "HeLa" for Henrietta Lacks, multiplied as no other cells outside the human body had before, doubling their numbers daily. Their dogged growth spawned a breakthrough in cell research; never before could
investigators reliably experiment on such cell cultures because they would weaken and die before meaningful results could be obtained. On the day of Henrietta's death, the head of Hopkins' tissue-culture research lab, Dr. George Gey, went before TV cameras, held up a tube of HeLa cells, and announced that a new age of medical research had begun--one that, someday, could produce a cure for cancer.

When he discovered HeLa could survive even shipping via U.S. mail, Gey sent his prize culture to colleagues around the country. They allowed HeLa to grow a little, and then sent some to their colleagues. Demand quickly rose, so the cells were put into mass production and traveled around the globe and even into space, on an unmanned satellite to determine whether human tissues could survive zero gravity.

In the half-century since Henrietta Lacks' death, her tumor cells were combined mass is probably much larger than Lacks was when she was alive and have continually been used for research into cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, and countless other scientific pursuits. Dr. Jonas Salk used HeLa to help develop his polio vaccine in the early '50s. The cells are so hardy that they took over other tissue cultures, researchers discovered in the 1970s, leading to reforms in how such cultures are handled. In the biomedical world, HeLa cells are as famous as lab rats and Petri dishes.

The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards are underway at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, and some of the early winners have been unraveled. Meryl Streep and Mo'Nique were among those who managed to bring home an awards from the Globes in the movie category on Sunday, January 17.

Nabbing two Best Actress in Comedy or Musical nominations for her performance in "It's Complicated" and "Julie & Julia", Meryl won the title for her performance as Julia Child in the latter movie. She was announced to have bested Sandra Bullock, Marion Cotillard and Julia Roberts by presenter Colin Farrell.

Meanwhile, Mo'Nique nabbed the Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture award for her role in "Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire". Being the first one to grab an award for the night, she was announced as the recipient of the particular kudo by Nicole Kidman.

In the television, Toni Collette, John Lithgow, Michael C. Hall and Julianna Margulies stole the performers category. Collete won Best TV Actress in Comedy or Musical Series, Litgow took home Best TV Supporting Actor, Hall nabbed Best TV Actor in Drama Series and Margulies nabbed Best TV Actress in Drama Series.

"Up" was also among the early winners as it was hailed Best Animated Feature Film. In addition to the Best Animation, it also grabbed the kudo for Best Original Score in Motion Picture. In the meantime, Cher and Christina Aguilera took the stage to reveal "The Weary Kind" of "Crazy Heart" as the winner of Best Original Song in Motion Picture.