# Made-Up, False and Flat-out Wrong Trivia Dominoes **URL:** \ **Category:** Thread Games\ **Created:** [April 21, 2014, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580 "2014-04-21T03:04:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/161 "2014-04-26T03:35:00Z")
President Nixon famously gave a speech insisting he would keep his dog Checkers as it was the only gift he had ever been given, by an “admirer.” Little do many people outside the beltway know that Checkers was an ambassador from Rigel VI, who had assumed a dog shape and was assigned to watch over Nixon after landing in Roswell with his team in 1947. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/162 "2014-04-26T07:09:46Z")
The game we know as Checkers was actually invented in China, while Chinese Checkers was invented in Nebraska. Originally, it used shiny ball bearings for pieces, known as “shinies”, and somehow, “Shinies Checkers” became Chinese Checkers. > [@astorian](#): > > Vern Law of the Pirates became a destitute, homeless vagrantc after retiring from baseball. He eventually pawned his Cy Young award to buy liquor. From the Department Of What A Coincidence, I was going to make a post about Vernon Law but never got around to it (his kids were named Princeton, Harvard and Corporate, you know). ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/163 "2014-04-26T07:23:55Z")
Mathematical studies conducted at Princeton have indicated that Chinese checkers is more difficult and challenging than chess. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/164 "2014-04-26T07:32:14Z")
Chess, in its original form, was actually played with a deck of cards. The Egyptians, who lacked paper due to being a desert country, developed a variation of the game played with small tokens and it was this variation that evolved into our modern game. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/165 "2014-04-26T07:43:24Z")
Of course, Egyptians did have paper, but it was rather thin and only good for wrapping mummies. It’s why toilet paper is often used in mummy costumes today. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/166 "2014-04-26T12:53:47Z")
It wasn’t until the Twenty-second Dynasty (from the Third Intermediate Period) that Egyptians actually began ‘walking like an Egyptian’. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/167 "2014-04-26T13:27:46Z")
A recently translated Egyption tablet from the 22nd dynasty turned out to be lyrics to a song called Walk Like a 20th Century American… ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/168 "2014-04-26T14:54:48Z")
The famed Rosetta Stone, used to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs, was named after its discoverer’s daughter, Rosetta Maria Luisa Juanita Francesca Sanchez Schwarz-Mulholland. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/169 "2014-04-26T16:54:58Z")
Mr. Mulholland is my next door neighbor, and he invented the very first wireless mouse & keyboard combination (that is, each existed on their own, but he was the first to sell them together). ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/170 "2014-04-26T23:07:10Z")
Henry Ford’s automobile business was going nowhere until he hit on the idea of selling his cars together with engines. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/171 "2014-04-27T00:28:11Z")
Henry Ford reported the first modern instance of an alien abduction (his), complete with little green men and anal probes. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/172 "2014-04-27T02:28:18Z")
_Chartreuseumpithacus_ is a Neolithic race of little green men known from fossils found on the Farallon Islands in California. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/173 "2014-04-27T06:18:58Z")
In 1999 Warner Brothers sued the famous Oxford College of England, asserting that the use of the world “Neolithic” by the publishing arm of their department of anthropology constituted copyright infringement on WB’s recently released _The Matrix_. ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/174 "2014-04-27T09:01:15Z")
By the time the original Oxford English Dictionary was completed in 1884, 90% of it was complete gibberish to the ultimate editor. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/175 "2014-04-27T12:25:47Z")
The Ultimate Fighting Championship was originally pitched as a Saturday morning kid’s show. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/176 "2014-04-27T13:53:33Z")
The Saturday morning kid’s show _Thundercats_ was actually a propaganda device to instill the doctrine of vegetarianism in children. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/177 "2014-04-27T14:56:50Z")
Thundercats was actually a metaphor for the Middle East crisis. ---
**Author:** ![Esox\_Lucius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Esox\_Lucius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esox_Lucius)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/178 "2014-04-28T00:28:51Z")
The Chinese word for “crisis” isn’t just “opportunity”, but translates more closely as “opportunity for lawyers”. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/179 "2014-04-28T00:45:42Z")
Paul the Apostle’s epistle to the Galatians originally included a 10-page section extolling the virtues of lawyers, tax collectors, used chariot salesmen, and Roman politicians, thusly claiming these professions would receive preferential treatment in heaven. However, his words resulted in so much outrage, that the offending passage was struck from the text, and all original manuscripts were destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580/180 "2014-04-28T02:55:32Z")
Paul’s epistles were not often addressed to the people we think they were. That is, his letters to the Corinthians did not go to Corinth, nor did his letter to the Ephisians go to Ephesus. Rather, these letters represent Paul’s correspondence to a friend or relative (history is unsure who, but leading contenders include Abihu, who may have been Paul’s father, and Drusilla, who may have been his girlfriend). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/made-up-false-and-flat-out-wrong-trivia-dominoes/686580.md?page=10)