# Trivia Dominoes: Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia **URL:** \ **Category:** Thread Games\ **Created:** [February 4, 2010, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657 "2010-02-04T08:12:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1972
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39429 "2018-07-30T13:13:33Z")
On September 11, 2001 in New York City, more than 3,000 calls flooded the 911 system in the first 18 minutes, and more than 57,000 in the 24 hours after the first plane hit the north tower. of the World Trade Center The calls from inside the towers totaled about 130, though many of those came from people in groups, sometimes of 100 or more. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39430 "2018-07-30T14:25:15Z")
Criminal cases in California are captioned “The People v. [defendant’s name].” In Massachusetts, they are “Commonwealth v.,” and in Ohio, “State v.” In Federal court, they are “United States of America v.,” although the “of America” is commonly omitted. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39431 "2018-07-30T15:02:50Z")
All gray whale calves are born in the warm, shallow lagoons of Baja, California. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39432 "2018-07-30T15:19:15Z")
The lagoon on the set of “Gilligan’s Island”, adjacent to the Ventura Freeway, has been paved over for a CBS Studio Center employee parking lot. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39433 "2018-07-30T16:05:24Z")
The rights to _Star Trek_ have passed over the years, in varying arrangements and degrees, from Desilu to NBC to Paramount to Viacom and now to CBS. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39434 "2018-07-30T17:14:56Z")
The Vulcan salute was devised by Leonard Nimoy, who portrayed the half-Vulcan character Mr. Spock on the original _Star Trek_ television series. The salute first appeared in 1967 on the Star Trek second season opening episode, “_Amok Time_”. Nimoy wrote that he based it on the Priestly Blessing performed by Jewish Kohanim with both hands, thumb to thumb in this same position, representing the Hebrew letter Shin (ש), which has three upward strokes similar to the position of the thumb and fingers in the salute. The letter Shin here stands for El Shaddai, meaning “Almighty (God)”. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39435 "2018-07-30T19:00:07Z")
Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, assigned to the International Space Station at the time of Leonard Nimoy’s death, posted a [picture on Twitter](https://twitter.com/astrosamantha/status/571814511377846273?lang=en) from the station’s cupola (Earth observation deck) showing her in a Starfleet uniform (yes, she brought one), doing the Vulcan salute, with the caption “Of all the souls I have encountered… his was the most human.” Thx @TheRealNimoy for bringing Spock to life for us." ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39436 "2018-07-30T19:14:27Z")
Dr. Benjamin Spock was an American pediatrician whose book _Baby and Child Care_, first published in 1946, is one of the best-sellers of all time. The book’s premise to mothers is that “you know more than you think you do.” The book sold 500,000 copies in the six months after its initial publication, and 50 million copies by the time of Spock’s death in 1998. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39437 "2018-07-30T20:54:22Z")
Guy Benjamin played quarterback in the NFL for the Miami Dolphins, the New Orleans Saints, and the San Francisco 49ers in a career that spanned from 1978 to 1983. Playing for Stanford under Bill Walsh, Benjamin won the Sammy Baugh trophy in 1977 as the top passer in college football. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2018, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39438 "2018-07-30T21:12:30Z")
The Romanian region of Dobrogea, on the Black Sea, has dolphins on its coat of arms, which forms part of the coat of arms of Romania. Heraldically, the dolphins are described as “two dolphins urinant respectant Or” which means that they are gold in color and swimming in water oriented vertically, with the head to base and tail to chief, as if positioned for diving; it does not mean that they are urinating. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39439 "2018-07-31T00:56:16Z")
The Black Sea is the world’s largest meromictic basin – the upper layer and lower layers of water exchange very little. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39440 "2018-07-31T12:15:03Z")
The Sea of Marmara lies entirely within the borders of Turkey and connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey’s Asian and European parts. The Sea of Marmara is also the smallest sea in the world, with an area of 4,380 square miles. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39441 "2018-07-31T13:46:38Z")
A sea is a large body of salt water that is surrounded in whole or in part by land. The “World Ocean”, the single connected salty body of water comprising all oceans that covers the majority of Earth’s surface, is "sea”. This is also common usage for “the sea”. Besides the World Ocean, the largest Sea in the world is the Coral Sea in the Pacific Ocean. The Coral Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific. It is adjacent to Australia’s northeast side. A marginal sea is defined to be a division of an ocean, partially enclosed by islands, archipelagos, or peninsulas, adjacent to or widely open to the open ocean at the surface, and/or bounded by submarine ridges on the sea floor. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39442 "2018-07-31T16:18:40Z")
The Sea of Galilee is technically not a sea, as it is a freshwater lake. With a level of about 700 feet below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake on Planet Earth. Its main source of water is the Jordan River which flows through the lake from north to south and then continues on to the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee is one of Israel’s largest sources of drinking water. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39443 "2018-07-31T16:33:40Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, assigned to the International Space Station at the time of Leonard Nimoy’s death, posted a [picture on Twitter](https://twitter.com/astrosamantha/status/571814511377846273?lang=en) from the station’s cupola (Earth observation deck) showing her in a Starfleet uniform (yes, she brought one), doing the Vulcan salute, with the caption “Of all the souls I have encountered… his was the most human.” Thx @TheRealNimoy for bringing Spock to life for us." That’s certainly a Starfleet pin (and the post was a very nice thing to do in Nimoy’s memory), but she does not appear to be in Starfleet uniform. In play: Members of the British Royal Family have traditionally been baptized in water from the Jordan River, as, according to the New Testament, Jesus Christ was at the hands of John the Baptist. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39444 "2018-07-31T17:43:29Z")
(It’s Science Officer Blue, just with the sleeves cut short, whaddaya want?) Michael Jordan, the consensus best player in basketball history, was the third overall pick in the 1984 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls, following top pick Hakeem Olajuwon by the Houston Rockets (a Hall of Famer, not a mistake), and Sam Bowie by the Portland Trail Blazers (always injured, major mistake). ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39445 "2018-07-31T18:21:19Z")
The Jordan River is the only major water source flowing into the Dead Sea, which has a high saline and mineral content. The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean basin for thousands of years. It was one of the world’s first health resorts (for Herod the Great), and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from asphalt for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilizers. People also use the salt and the minerals from the Dead Sea to create cosmetics and herbal sachets. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39446 "2018-07-31T20:06:16Z")
The term Jordan in Jordan almonds (almonds with a hard candy shell) is most likely a corrupted version of the French word jardin, meaning “garden”, hence, a cultivated rather than wild almond. However, others suggest the term referred to a variety of almonds originally grown along the Jordan River characterized by long, thin, slender, rather smooth kernels in thick, heavy shells. Still others believe that Jordan is a corruption of the name of the town of Verdun in the northeast of France. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39447 "2018-07-31T20:38:20Z")
The Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus), also called sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple, or topinambour, is a species of sunflower native to eastern North America, and found from eastern Canada and Maine west to North Dakota, and south to northern Florida and Texas. It is neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke. Italian settlers in the United States called the plant _girasole_, the Italian word for sunflower, because of its familial relationship to the garden sunflower (both plants are members of the genus Helianthus). Over time, the name girasole may have been changed to Jerusalem. The artichoke part of the Jerusalem artichoke’s name comes from the taste of its edible tuber. Samuel de Champlain, the French explorer, sent the first samples of the plant to France, noting its taste was similar to that of an artichoke. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2018, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657/39448 "2018-07-31T22:23:11Z")
– Kansas’s state flower is the sunflower. – North Dakota grows more sunflowers than any other US state. – Sunflower seeds contain a moderate amount of thiamine, sodium, magnesium, selenium, manganese, and phosphorus. – Sunflowers in the Tuscany region of Italy are probably one of its most iconic symbols. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657.md?page=1971) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trivia-dominoes-play-off-the-last-bit-of-trivia/527657.md?page=1973)