Like people of many cultures, ancient Greeks had a myth to explain the creation of the world. According to the myth, in the beginning, there was only darkness, or Chaos. Gaea, the Earth, grew out of Chaos and gave birth to Uranus, the sky. Gaea became the mother of all living things. Gaea and Uranus gave birth to monsters and giants like the Titans and Cyclopes. Uranus hated these ugly children and threw them into the underworld. Gaea was angered by this and convinced Cronus, the most powerful Titan, to overthrow his father. Cronus did overthrow Uranus, but he worried that his own children would someday overthrow him. To prevent this, Cronus swallowed each of his children when they were born. When the youngest, Zeus, was born, Cronus’s wife tricked him by hiding the baby. She gave him a rock wrapped in a blanket instead. Zeus did end up overthrowing Cronus. He also saved his five older brothers and sisters from inside Cronus’s stomach. Zeus and his siblings formed the first generation of the Olympian gods.