Trivia Dominoes II — Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia — continued! (Part 1)

Saturn was a division of General Motors, first founded in 1985 in an attempt by GM to better compete against Japanese imports. Saturn was initially given a high degree of autonomy within GM, and marketed itself as “a different kind of car company.” Its dealers offered no-haggle pricing, and the brand quickly developed a small but fervent following among consumers.

By the early 2000s, Saturn’s autos were no longer uniquely built for the brand, and were instead rebadged versions of other GM models. After a brief attempt to sell Saturn off to Penske Automotive, General Motors shut down the Saturn division in 2010.

Besides Saturn, other defunct GM brands include Pontiac and Hummer (defunct in 2010, along with Saturn), and Oldsmobile (2004). The list also includes LaSalle (1940), and the McLaughlin Motor Car Company (1918).

Hummer did return in 2020, as a sub-brand of GMC.

Archie and Edith Bunker sang, among other things, “Gee, our old LaSalle ran great” in the All in the Family opening theme song “Those Were the Days.” The song was written by Lee Adams (lyrics) and Charles Strouse (music). The song can be played only using the black keys of a piano.

The theme song for Family Guy is based on the theme song for All in the Family. Peter Griffin is loosely based on Archie Bunker, his appearance, personality and role as head of his family reflect traces of Archie.

The song “La Donna e’ mobile” pops up in several Nicholas Cage films including Guarding Tess, Captain Correlli’s Mandolin, Honeymoon in Vegas and The Family Man.

In 1855, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chose Las Vegas as the site to build a fort halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where they would travel to gather supplies. The fort was abandoned several years afterward. The remainder of this Old Mormon Fort can still be seen at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue, at Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park.

In 1864, Nevada became the nation’s 36th state, following West Virginia (#35, 1863), and before Nebraska (#36, 1867).

In 1905, Las Vegas was founded as a city. At the time its size was only 110 acres of land.

In 1911, on June 1, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city.

In 1922, the Historic Westside School was built in Historic West Las Vegas. It was the first grammar school in West Las Vegas and remains today as the oldest remaining schoolhouse in Las Vegas. The city’s population was around 5,000.

In 1931, construction of the Hoover Dam began. Between 10,000 and 20,000 unemployed men descended on Las Vegas looking for work. The dam was opened in 1936.

In 1941, the Las Vegas Army Air Field (now Nellis) was built. Also, the El Rancho Vegas hotel‐casino became the first themed resort on the Strip. This was followed by the Last Frontier (1942), Flamingo (1946, on December 26) and Thunderbird (1948).

In 1947, Buddy Siegel was murdered in Beverly Hills.

In 1950, the Las Vegas Army Air Field was renamed in honor of 1st Lieutenant William Harrell Nellis who died during the Battle of the Bulge when his P-47 Thunderbolt crashed grown up in nearby Searchlight NV and in Las Vegas.

In the mid-1980s the population exploded, averaging a growth rate of about 7% annually. From 1985 to 1995, the population nearly doubled from 186,000 to 368,00.

Today, Las Vegas has a population of 635,000. Neighboring Henderson has a population of over 300,000.

Over a hundred workers died during the construction of Hoover Dam, leading to rumors that their bodies were just tossed into the concrete and remain entombed in the dam to this day. There is no truth to this, however, as a human body is organic and would decompose over time, leaving an air pocket within the construction of the dam, much like the hollows found in the volcanic residue of Pompeii, which would compromise the integrity of the dam. Great care would obviously have been taken to prevent this.

Despite this fact (and also possibly due to a stanza in the song, “The Highwayman”), the legend of buried workers persists.

-“BB”-

Hoover Dam was originally called Boulder Canyon Dam because it was going to be built in Boulder Canyon, about 15 miles upriver from its current location in Black Canyon. Some called it Hoover Dam because it was President Herbert Hoover who was in office when many of the dam’s bills were passed, and also when its construction started in 1931. Even though the dam’s site was relocated to Black Canyon, the press frequently referred to it as Boulder Dam or Boulder Canyon Dam. Most Americans called it either that, or Hoover Dam.

Previously, when the bill has been signed in December 1928 authorizing the dam, it was President Calvin Coolidge who signed the Boulder Canyon Project Act. But Hoover had been elected the month before.

After FDR took office in 1933, his administration wanted it named Boulder Dam. During the Great Depression, Hoover’s name was not favored in many households.

After WWII and as memories of the Depression faded, and Hoover had rehabilitated himself to some extent through good works during and after World War II, unanimously decided in 1947 Congress that the dam would be officially called Hoover Dam.

I beg to differ, Bullitt:

Hoover Dam is named for Herbert Hoover, the nation’s 31st president. When construction of the dam was initiated on September 30, 1930, Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur ordered that the dam to be built in the Black Canyon of the Colorado as part of the Boulder Canyon Project Act be called “Hoover Dam”. By a Congressional Act of February 14, 1931, this name was made official.

After Mr. Hoover left office, the names “Boulder Canyon Dam” and “Boulder Dam” were frequently used when referring to the dam, allegedly because the new Secretary of the Interior did not like Mr. Hoover. However, the name of the dam was never officially changed from “Hoover” (emphasis mine). In the 80th Congress (1947), a number of bills were introduced to “officially” restore the name of Hoover Dam. On March 4, 1947, House Resoluton 140 was introduced for this purpose.
(source: US Dept of the Interior │ Bureau of Reclamation │Lower Colorado Region

So it sounds like the dam always bore the name of Herbert Hoover; however, for a period of time public consensus assigned it a different name through repeated usage (an early example of the idea that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes truth?), and the House Resolution in 1947 (the same one you alluded to) merely reaffirmed what was already fact.

-“BB”-

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is so named not because of the color of the rock, but rather because many places in the canyon are in shadow almost all day.

A Gunnery Sergeant (GySgt) is a staff non-commissioned officer rank in the United States Marine Corps. The rank is above that of a staff sergeant, and below that of a master sergeant or first sergeant.

Gunnery sergeants are commonly (and informally) referred to as “Gunny” or “Guns.”

“Kissing the gunner’s daughter” was a phrase used in the 1700s and 1800s British Navy, referring to a flogging. The punishment, also called “hugging” or “marrying” the gunner’s daughter, meant that the offending sailor was lashed face-down to a cannon and flogged, often with a cat o’ nine tails.

The mild oath, “son of a gun”, also came down to us courtesy of the British Navy and the early muzzle-loading guns. Women used to be allowed to live on naval ships, and babies born aboard ship were delivered in the spaces between the ship’s cannons. Because of this, any child born on board who had uncertain paternity would be recorded in the ship’s log as “the son of a gun”.

-“BB”-

Having women on British ships was originally believed to be bad luck. In 1379, a fleet commanded by Sir John Arundel, bound for Brittainy, had about 60 women on board. When the fleet encountered a huge storm, the sailors believed it was because of the presence of the women. In an effort to calm the waters, all the females were thrown overboard. Shockingly, this tactic did not work and 25 ships were lost. Most of the men drowned, including Arundel.

The presence of women aboard is chronic problem for Capt. John “Lucky Jack” Aubrey in the Napoleonic naval adventures of Patrick O’Brian, particularly in Clarissa Oakes (called The Truelove in the American edition), in which the title character causes dissension among the crew of the Royal Navy frigate HMS Surprise by sharing her sexual favors too indiscriminately.

Members of the asexual community, looking for recognition and visibility for their sexual orientation, have claimed that Clarissa Oakes is asexual.

According to Patrick O’Brian’s description, “physical love-making was meaningless to Clarissa, an act of not the slightest consequence. She took not the least pleasure in it and although out of good nature or a wish to be liked she might gratify a ‘lover’ it might be said that she was chastely unchaste. At that time no moral question was involved. The experience of her childhood - loneliness in a remote country house, early abuse, and a profound ignorance of the ordinary world - accounted for her attitude of mind: there was no bodily imperfection.”

Other characters in literature and popular culture who have been seen as asexual are Sherlock Holmes, Jughead Jones, and Gilligan.

Dusty’s Trail was a short-lived television sitcom, airing in 1973-74 on CBS. It starred Bob Denver and Forrest Tucker, and was essentially a reworking of Denver’s earlier show, Gilligan’s Island, with a Western setting.

It featured a group of seven travelers (all of which were analogues of the characters on Gilligan’s Island), who had become separated from a wagon train en route to California, and thus wandered through the West.

After Gilligan’s Island ended, Bob Denver’s next attempt on network TV was a show called The Good Guys, which premiered on CBS in 1968.

Denver played Rufus Butterworth , the driver of a customized 1924 Lincoln turned taxi; Herb Edelman played his childhood friend Bert Gramus, owner of a local diner and neighborhood hangout called “Bert’s Place”, which Butterworth advertised on the taxi’s fender-mount spare tire covers. Plots usually revolved around “get rich quick” schemes that invariably backfired. Other characters included Bert’s schoolteacher wife, Claudia (played by Joyce Van Patten), and diner regulars Mr. Bender (Jack Perkins) and truck driver Big Tom (played by Denver’s Gilligan’s Island co-star Alan Hale Jr.). Jim Backus (who had played Thurston Howell III on Gilligan’s Island) also appeared in a couple of episodes.

Never a hit with viewers, The Good Guys failed to finish in the Nielsen Top 30 and was canceled during its second season.

-“BB”-

Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup first hit shelves in 1961, according to the company’s website. The syrup’s bottle was allegedly modeled after Thelma “Butterfly” McQueen, who played Scarlett O’Hara’s maid in Gone with the Wind.

However, in television commercials featuring Mrs. Butterworth, the character was voiced by a white actress, leading to some debate over the mascot’s race.

Still, critics have long pointed out that the Mrs. Butterworth bottle is reminiscent of a “Mammy” figure, which reinforces racial stereotypes about Black women, according to the New York Times

Maple syrup can be made from any species of the maple tree. The sugar maple has the highest concentration of sugar in its sap; 40 gallons of sugar maple sap will yield 1 gallon of syrup. Other species of maple trees have lower concentrations of sugar; for instance, it requires 60 gallons of sap from the box elder tree to produce 1 gallon of maple syrup.