It has also been claimed that Christians destroyed the Library at Alexandria as well. All in the name of erasing everything but Christianity.
Well if you like fiction wound loosely through history read "Treasure" by Clive Clussler. It is about the Library and many of its documents final resting place. For those of you who don't know it's a Dirk Pitt/Numa novel, the recent movie Sahara is an adaptation of one of the books.
If you look at the history of the Templar's you find they morphed into bankers after a long period guarding the road to the holy land and the temple in Jerusalem. They were so desired by the Holy See at one point that they were given a charter above all but the Pope (sorry don't remember the specific document at the moment). The height of their wealth was only about 2 centuries before their demise.
The date was Friday October 13th, 1307. Pope Clement V and Philip IV of France issued secret orders that were to be opened (if I am not mistaken at dawn) on the 13th all over Europe.
They were accused of several vile crimes against the church and many were executed.
When the last grand master of the Templars ( Jacques de Molay) was burning on the stake he cursed Philip and Clement ( or so the legend/history goes) and asked them to join him in Hell within a year. Clement dies 1 month later and Philip 7.
Now the history teacher is done with his story and I would like you all to print this post and sell 40 million copies at $1.99 a piece.
I will then promptly donate half of that back to Tech and assume the task of finding a new AD and hiring a marketing staff etc.... as stipulated in my terms of donation.
Smile..... it burns more calories