What is the difference between meiosis and mitosis?

Mitosis is the division that occurs in every cell in your body. It forms 2 diploid daughter cells, identical to each other and to the cell that has divided. There are 4 stages: prophase, metaphase, anaphase and telophase. Meiosis only occurs in your ovaries and testes, and is how your gametes are formed. This forms 4 haploid cells, each different from each other and from their parent cells as they contain a combination of genetic information from the sperm and the egg cell. This also involves prophase, metaphase, anaphase and telophase but each stage occurs twice in one cycle, whereas for mitosis it only occurs once. Meiosis creates different cells because there are stages in meiosis that cause variation, unlike in mitosis. These are random fertilisation, meaning there are many possible sperm and egg cells which could combine; independent assortment, meaning when the chromosomes line up along the metaphase plate it can be in any order and finally crossing over, which is during anaphase when sections of sister chromatids can swap between each other. These all lead to the cells created by meiosis being unique, which is partly why we are not identical to our brothers and sisters, for example.