Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Knights Templar began their order in 1119 when nine French knights gathered in a wing of the royal palace on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They started as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon with no financial resources and a single horse shared between two of them.
The Knights Templar developed a banking system that allowed pilgrims to deposit valuables at a local preceptory and receive a document to claim equal value upon arrival in the Holy Land. This system functioned as the first use of bank cheques and managed nearly 1,000 commanderies and fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land.
King Philip IV of France ordered the simultaneous arrest of Grand Master Jacques de Molay and scores of other French Templars on the dawn of Friday the 13th of October 1307. This event initiated a campaign that dismantled the order in less than a decade after Pope Clement V issued the papal bull Pastoralis Praeeminenti on the 22nd of November 1307.
Grand Master Jacques de Molay was burned alive at the stake in Paris on the 18th of March 1314 after retracting his confessions and insisting on his innocence. He remained defiant to the end and asked to be tied so he could face the Notre Dame Cathedral while holding his hands together in prayer.
King Denis I of Portugal refused to persecute the former knights and allowed them to reconstitute themselves as the Order of Christ in 1319. This new order absorbed many Knights Templar into its ranks and established its headquarters at a castle in Tomar.