n October 15, 1910, Walter Wellman's hydrogen-filled airship America departed Atlantic City in the first attempt to cross the Atlantic by powered aircraft. Originally built for Wellman's unsuccessful attempts to reach the North Pole, the enormous airship had been enlarged and equipped with engines, a suspended lifeboat and an experimental radio.

The expedition also carried Kiddo, a cat who was so unhappy about flying that engineer Melvin Vaniman used their pioneering radio equipment to ask someone to come get the 'damn' thing.

On October 14, 1888, Louis Le Prince filmed four people moving through the garden at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds. The surviving twenty frames of Roundhay Garden Scene are believed to form the oldest surviving motion-picture film, created with the single-lens camera Le Prince had developed in his Leeds workshop.

One of those people was Sarah Whitley, Le Prince's mother-in-law, who died only ten days after the filming. But the biggest shock was yet to come.

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Special note: At the time of scheduling this episode, the hat you see here was listed for sale on Etsy at the following link. It might still be there if you act fast enough, or you might find another you like even more. The Etsy shop link is https://www.etsy.com/shop/

At dawn on Friday, October 13, 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of members of the Knights Templar, including Grand Master Jacques de Molay. The Templars had grown from a tiny group protecting pilgrims into a wealthy international religious and military organization with castles, businesses, land and a sophisticated financial network across medieval Europe.

The accusations against them were extraordinary, but there was a devastating problem with the apparent evidence: many Templars confessed under torture.