[Wikipedia] October 13: Knights Templar

[Faraaz Damji]

   The Knights Templar were among the most famous of the Christian
   military orders.  The organization existed for approximately two
   centuries in the Middle Ages.  It was created in the aftermath of the
   First Crusade of 1096, to ensure the safety of the large numbers of
   European pilgrims who flowed toward Jerusalem after its conquest.
   Officially endorsed by the church in 1129, the Order became a favored
   charity across Europe.  It grew rapidly in membership and power.
   Templar knights, easily recognizable in their white mantle with a
   distinct red cross, made some of the best equipped, trained, and
   disciplined fighting units of the Crusades.  Non-warrior members of the
   Order managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom,
   innovating many financial techniques that were an early form of
   banking, and building numerous fortifications across Europe and the
   Holy Land.  The Templars' success was tied closely to the success of
   the Crusades.  When the Holy Land was lost and the Templars suffered
   crushing defeats, support for the Order's existence faded.  Rumors
   about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony created mistrust, and
   King Philip IV of France, deeply in debt to the Order, began
   pressuring Pope Clement V to take action.  On Friday, October 13 1307,
   King Philip had many of the Order's members, including the Grand
   Master Jacques de Molay, arrested, tortured into "confessions", and
   burned at the stake.  In 1312, Pope Clement, under continuing pressure
   from King Philip, forcibly disbanded the entire Order.

Read the rest of this article:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar


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Today's selected anniversaries:

54:
   Claudius was fatally poisoned by his wife Agrippina the Younger,
   making her 17-year-old son Nero the next Roman Emperor.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero)

1773:
   French astronomer Charles Messier discovered the Whirlpool Galaxy,
   an interacting, grand-design spiral galaxy located at a distance of
   approximately 23 million light-years in the constellation Canes
   Venatici.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirlpool_Galaxy)

1843:
   The Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, the oldest
   continually-operating Jewish service organization in the world, was
   founded in New York City.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%27nai_B%27rith)

1917:
   An estimated 100,000 people in the Cova da Iria fields near Fátima,
   Portugal witnessed "The Miracle of the Sun."
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miracle_of_the_Sun)

1943:
   World War II: With a new government led by General Pietro Badoglio,
   parts of Italy switched sides to the Allies and declared war on the
   Axis Powers.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Badoglio)


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Wiktionary's Word of the day:

   profligate: (archaic) To drive away; to overcome.
   (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/profligate)


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Wikiquote of the day:

   I'm always astounded at the way we automatically look at what divides
   and separates us.  We never look at what people have in common.  If you
   see it, black and white people, both sides look to see the
   differences, they don't look at what they have together.  Men and
   women, and old and young, and so on.  And this is a disease of the
   mind, the way I see it.  -- Doris Lessing
   (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Doris_Lessing)