Part 1: Trojan Horse
In ordinary English usage, a Trojan horse is someone who joins or infiltrates a group intending to destroy it from within.
Long ago, there was a city-state named Troy, and its citizens were known as Trojans. Archaeologists believe it was at the site of the present-day Turkish city of Hisarlik. Because of its strategic location along a busy shipping route between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, Trojans had to defend themselves from many aggressors, and, as a result, they fought many wars. Historians refer to these wars as the Trojan wars, and one of them was fought because of Hellen.
It is a long story, but here is the short version.
Helen, the most beautiful woman in Greece, is married to King Menelaus. She falls in love with Paris, the handsome son of King Priam of Troy, and the two elope to Troy. Greece asks Troy to hand Helen back, but it declines. Greece, therefore, wages war against Troy to get Helen back.
Troy puts up a determined defence, and, despite a ten-year siege, Greece is unable to enter Troy. The Greeks then hatch a plan that finally gives them victory.
In their siege of Troy, they discover that Trojans worship horses. They, therefore, construct a giant wooden horse and put a few soldiers inside. The rest of the soldiers then sail away, so the Trojans think they have surrendered.
In the evening, the Trojans open the gate and are excited by the sight of a beautiful wooden horse. They think the Greeks forgot it, so they pull it inside the gates of Troy. At night, the Greek soldiers come out of the wooden horse to open the gates. The Greek soldiers who had sailed away return, and, with the gates wide open and Trojans unprepared, they enter the city and kill all Trojans. This is said to be History's first-ever genocide.
From then on, the wooden horse has become known as the Trojan horse; and the term refers to business, political, or military strategy in which one player pretends to be a friend of the enemy and uses that opportunity to destroy him or her from within.
