:02:04
He was also a member
of a secret society known as the Masons.
:02:08
And he knew he was dying.
:02:11
He woke up his stable boy
in the middle of the night
:02:14
and ordered him to take him to
the White House to see Andrew Jackson,
:02:18
because it was urgent
that he speak to the president.
:02:22
Did he talk to him?
:02:24
No. He never got the chance.
:02:27
The president wasn't there that night.
:02:31
But Charles Carroll had a secret.
:02:34
So he took into his confidence
the one person he could,
:02:38
my grandfather's grandfather,
:02:41
Thomas Gates.
:02:43
What was the secret?
:02:48
A treasure.
:02:51
A treasure beyond all imagining.
:02:58
A treasure that had been
fought over for centuries
:03:01
by tyrants, pharaohs,
emperors, warlords.
:03:06
And every time it changed hands
it grew larger.
:03:12
And then suddenly...
:03:15
it vanished.
:03:18
It didn't reappear
for more than a thousand years,
:03:22
when knights from the First Crusade
:03:23
discovered secret vaults
beneath the Temple of Solomon.
:03:27
You see, the knights who found the vaults
:03:29
believed that the treasure
was too great for any one man -
:03:34
not even a king.
:03:36
They brought the treasure back to Europe
and took the name "the Knights Templar".
:03:44
Over the next century
they smuggled it out of Europe
:03:47
and they formed a new brotherhood
called the Freemasons,
:03:50
in honour of
the builders of the great temple.
:03:54
War followed.
:03:55
By the time of the American Revolution
the treasure had been hidden again.
:03:59
By then the Masons included