Trivia Dominoes: Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia

Saints Peter and Paul share a common feast day, June 29.

Off-game:

[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
In the late 1990s, officials in North Dakota considered dropping the first word of the state name to appeal more to tourists, as the state had an image among some as being too cold and inhospitable to visit.
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Should have proposed South Saskatchewan instead. The word “South” would have attracted hordes of sun-seeking tourists. :slight_smile:

The tallest orthodox church bell tower in the world is the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia. Completed in 1733, the cathedral is also the oldest landmark in St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg, Florida, was, for a while, the worlds largest city of that name, when the USSR used Leningrad as the name of what is again St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg Florida was actually named after the origin n Russia of Peter Demens, who founded the city.

Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL, one of two major league baseball facilities named for orange juice brands along with Minute Maid Park in Houston, is the only MLB stadium that has also been the regular home of an NHL team - the Tampa Bay Lighting played in what was then the Suncoast Dome but renamed Thunderdome for them. It has also been the home of Arena and United Football League teams, and the world-famous Beef O’Brady’s Bowl.

Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, has a unique feature among all MLB ballparks - The Rays Touch Tank. It is a 10,000-gallon tank with several stingrays that one can touch. Rays are soft and leathery to the touch. The Rays Touch Tank experience is free to all fans attending home games.

In the subcontinent during the British Raj, buildings often had ceiling fans (‘punkahs’) that were manually operated through a series of pulleys. The servants who performed this task were known as ‘punkawallahs’.

The **Pulley **was recognized and described as one of the Six Simple Machines, by Heron of Alexandria before the Christian Era. The same six concepts remain today the bedrock of industrial efficiency.

A simple machine uses a single applied force to do work against a single load force. The classic set of six simple machines is the lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley, the inclined plane, the wedge, and the screw.

Henry “Hap” Arnold is the only U.S. general to hold five-star rank in two different services - the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force (created after World War II from the Army Air Corps).

Hap Arnold died on January 15, 1950, at his home in Sonoma, CA. He is interred at Arlington.

The Barony of Arlington was created in 1664. It eventually became a subsidiary title of the Dukes of Grafton. On the death of the 9th Duke in 1936 it fell into abeyance between his two sisters. The abeyance was terminated in 1999 in favour of the 9th Duke’s niece, Jennifer Forwood, now 11th Baroness Arlington.

The Marine Corps War Memorial next to Arlington National Cemetery is dedicated to all Marines who have died in defense of the United States since 1775. Also called the Iwo Jima Memorial, the statue (images) depicts the WWII servicemen who raised the second flag on Mt. Suribachi when they took Iwo Jima on 1945 February 23, five Marines and one Navy corpsman: Marines Sgt Michael Strank, Cpl Harlon Block, PFC Rene Gagnon, PFC Ira Hayes, PFC Franklin Sousley, and corpsman PM2C John Bradley.

The last royal statue to be erected in the Republic of Ireland was one of Queen Victoria in 1908 at Leinster House in Dublin. It commemorated her visit to Ireland in 1900.

In 1987 the statue was relocated to the newly-restored QVB building in Sydney, a gift to the people of Sydney from the Republic of Ireland, doubtless grateful to get rid of it.

Dublin, California is where the company Hexcel is headquartered. In December, 1986, an airplane made mostly of Hexcel advanced composite materials flew around the world non-stop and unrefueled. The Rutan Voyager (information here, and also here) was made of Hexcel honeycomb sandwich panels made of nomex core with graphite panels. At Hexcel, workers liked to say that the “Voyager was 95% Hexcel materials but only 5% of the total weight.”

I worked at Hexcel in Dublin in the late 1980s, and got to meet Voyager pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager at a dinner reception. I still have an autographed picture of the Voyager, although the autographs have faded a bit. The Rutan Voyager was designed by Dick Rutan’s brother, Burt Rutan.

There are only three types of regular polygon that can be arranged about a common vertex without leaving holes: six equilateral triangles; four squares; or three regular hexagons. It is the regular hexagon that provides the maximum cross-sectional area for the same perimeter. Bees therefore display a keen sense of geometry in using hexagonal cells for their honeycomb.

The California Department of Transportation (Cal Trans) has trucks that have large yellow boxes mounted behind them (image here http://www.energyabsorption.com/products/images/alpha70-1.gif, and YouTube video of a collision here – driver distracted by their laptop – Interstate Crash - YouTube).

These big yellow boxes, called TMAs, or sometimes TIAs (Truck-Mounted Attenuators, or Truck-Mounted Impact Attenuators), are meant to protect the trucks and Cal Trans workers from rear-end collisions. Inside these TMAs are honeycomb sandwich panels. It turns out that honeycomb sandwich panels have the property that during deformation, the pressure to crush the sandwich panel is linear with respect to the crush distance. So, inside these TMAs the honeycomb lies laterally, with the honeycomb cells “pointing” towards traffic.

This was as explained to me when I worked at Hexcel in the 1980s by a Hexcel engineer who helped devise this solution for Cal Trans – I’ve never seen it, nor do I have a cite. I expect that engineer, Tom Bitzer, is now retired. When I met Tom and he told me of this application, I coined the term “Bitzer Boxes” to help me remember. tom bitzer hexcel - Google Search

It used to be quite common to see these on California roads, years ago, but now they’re not very common at all. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw one. Will have to keep on the lookout and snap a picture.

‘Bitzer’ is an Australian term for a mongrel dog.

The American Kennel Club officially recognizes 180 dog breeds.

The American Kennel Club lists 17 Miscellaneous Breeds, not yet fully recognized.

In 1878 the AKC recognized the Chesapeake Bay Retriever. The CBR (or “Chessie”) is a truly American sporting breed and the toughest water retriever.