KLRU Q presents an evening of historic extravaganza on Monday, April 29th with an array of programs.

8:50 – The Map Makers “Discovery: The Waldseemuller Map“
The first episode of the series is the tale of a map now valued at 10 million dollars which has become known as the “birth certificate of America.” Within the lines marked on its surface can be traced the first discoveries of the “new world,” by 16th century explorers such as Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. But why were the new lands called America, and who were the men who first named the new continent on the famous Waldseemuller map?

9:40 – The Map Makers “Religion: The Mercator Atlas“
The 16th Century Europe was a time when map making and spying went hand in hand. It features Gerard Mercator, the most famous map maker to have lived, who became caught up in a dangerous plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I using an invasion map ordered by England’s enemies, the French. It is a story of intrigue, treason and religious turmoil, with map makers at the heart of the struggle for power in Europe. Information was power in European royal courts, and fragile maps were the key.

10:30 – North Pole Promise
Narrated by James Earl Jones, North Pole Promise is a timeless story of two American explorers and their secret legacy left behind at the North Pole 100 years ago.

Titanic with Len Goodman at 7 pm
In this program, Len Goodman, a judge on “Dancing with the Stars,” discovers how the impact of the Titanic disaster is still felt a century after the ship sank. Goodman has his own connection to the ship. Before he was a dancer, he was a welder for Harland and Woolf. This was company that, from 1909 to 1912, built the Titanic in Belfast. Goodman worked for the same company 50 years later, at their yard in East London. To mark the centenary of the Titanic tragedy in 2012, Goodman explores the ship’s 100-year legacy. He learns how for victims’ families and for the survivors themselves, the sinking was just the beginning of the story. Generations later, those stories are still unfolding as Goodman meets the modern-day descendants to learn how, 100 years after it sank, the Titanic’s legacy lives on.

Saving the Titanic at 8 pm
She was the pride of the British Empire. A leading example of state-of-the-art engineering in a time of groundbreaking scientific and technological innovations on a global scale: the Titanic. Yet she sank in less than three hours after striking an iceberg on April 14, 1912. We all know about the many deaths in the icy waters, the fates of the rich and famous on the ship’s maiden voyage and the dramas that played out in the Titanic’s last hours. What is less known however is how a team of shipbuilders and engineers attempted to save the stricken vessel. Seeking to answer the question of what happened in the engine and boiler rooms after the collision, this program tells the story of the disaster from below deck, with the action taking place between the time the crew embark the Titanic at Southampton and the eventual sinking of the ship. Based upon eyewitness accounts, this is the story of nine central characters from the engineering crew as they work among the huge, coal-fired furnaces heating the boilers and massive dynamos whirring to satisfy the ship’s demand for electricity. Their personal stories of bravery are recounted as the men fought courageously to hold back the power of the sea and keep the power systems running, even when they learned that all was lost. Most of these men died but their actions saved many lives.