Trivia Dominoes: Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia

Thread Games
24427

Hoover Dam was completed in 1936 — two years ahead of schedule. It’s chief engineer was the Canadian engineer Frank (“Hurry Up!”) Crowe. Crowe designed, built, or worked on many dams in the American west, especially in the southwest.

A list of Crowe’s dams includes (with year and nearby community):
1915: Arrowrock Dam (Boise ID)
1916: Jackson Hole Dam / Jackson Lake Dam (Moran WY)
1925: Tieton Dam (Naches WA)
1936: Hoover Dam / Boulder Dam (Boulder City NV)
1938: Parker Dam (Parker Dam CA)
(Year?) Copper Basin Dam (Cienega Springs CA)
(Year?) Gene Wash Dam (Parker Dam CA)
1945: Shasta Dam (Redding CA) — his last

Cites include:

http://www.redding.com/lifestyle/frank-crowes-name-lives-onin-shasta-dam-other

Francis Trenholm Crowe
Born: 12 Oct 1882, Trenholmville, Québec, Canada
Died: 26 Feb 1946, Redding, California, United States

Crowe single-handedly contributed significantly to the American WWII effort, by the power and water provided by his dams. Fortunately he lived long enough to see victory.

24428

In 1879 the South Fork Hunting & Fishing Club, an exclusive enclave whose members included Andrew Carnegie, Henry Frick and Andrew Mellon, restored an abandoned earthen dam and created Lake Conemaugh, a pleasure lake used for sailing and ice boating, which they stocked with expensive game fish. The spillway was covered with nets to prevent expensive fish from escaping. Despite warnings of safety hazards including debris caught in the spillway netting, no actions was taken. The dam was topped, then toppled, by heavy rains in May 1889.

Warnings were sent to the downstream town of Johnstown but were largely ignored (“Wolf” had already been cried too often.) The water crashed down the valley, sweeping trees, rail cars and entire houses in its path. By the time the 20 million tons of water reached Johnstown, it was carrying even more debris. The mass hit the city, flattening everything in its path, until it was stopped by an immense stone bridge at the far end of town. The stone bridge held, but created a disaster of its own. It acted like another dam, causing the water to back up over the city. Then the entire mass of wires, wood, rail cars and bodies caught fire. In the end, more than 2,200 people died in the Johnstown flood.

24429

The Tasman Bridge disaster occurred on the evening of 5 January 1975, in Hobart, the capital city of Australia’s island state of Tasmania, when a bulk ore carrier travelling up the Derwent River collided with several pylons of the Tasman Bridge, causing a large section of the bridge deck to collapse onto the ship and into the river below. Twelve people were killed, including seven crew on board the ship, and the five occupants of four cars which fell 45 m after driving off the bridge. The disaster severed the main link between the two halves of Hobart and divided the city.

Two cars on the bridge managed to break in time before falling over the edge. They remained teetering over the yawning gap. Their passengers escaped from the cars safely.

24430

While you’re there, you may also visit the nearby grave of this Civil War hero of mine: George Henry Thomas - Wikipedia

In play:

The dingy, cavernous interior of Cleveland’s Detroit-Superior Bridge was the setting for filming of Loki’s secret laboratory in the first Joss Whedon Avengers movie.

24431

It’s on the list.

He died at the Presidio in San Francisco, and then was buried 3,000 miles away in Troy! His wife was from Troy is apparently why.

in play:
The Cleveland Browns have never played in a Super Bowl. Neither have the Detroit Lions, Jacksonville Jaguars, or Houston Texans. But the Browns once went to ten straight league championships, 1946-1955 in the AAFC and NFL, and won 7 of them. They were led by QB “Automatic Otto” Graham every year of his ten professional seasons. Graham’s QB passer rating in 1946 of 112.1 stood as a record until final,y a great quarterback, one of the greatest ever in the game, Joe Montana, broke it in 1989.

24432

Yes, that’s right. He was a Virginian who remained loyal to the Union in 1861 and was, the story goes, disowned by his family. He was buried in his wife’s home town with all due military honors, in the presence of the President of the United States (Grant, his former commander). Thomas was a great guy who should be better-known today.

In play:

In his 1989 movie The Abyss, James Cameron depicted the loss of the U.S. ballistic missile submarine USS Montana. There has actually been no Montana in the Navy since the 1920s.

24433

In December 1941, “Mad Jack” Churchill, (later Lt. Col., DSO & Bar, MC & Bar) led a raid on a German base in Norway by playing “March of the Cameron Men” on the pipes before leaping from the landing craft, throwing a grenade and plunging into battle.

Mad Jack is also credited with the last kill in battle with a bow and soldier by a British soldier. During the evacuation of Dunkirk, he shot a German NCO with his bow and arrow.

24434

Traditionally a Cockney is defined as one born within earshot of the bells of the church of St Mary-le-Bow.

24435

Bell’s palsy is a result of a dysfunction of the cranial nerve VII resulting in (usually) one-sided facial paralysis.

24436

Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. She became Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right while she was still a child, then later Queen consort of France when she married King Louis VII. The marriage was annulled on 11 March 1152 on the grounds of consanguinity within the fourth degree. Eleanor went on to marry King Henry II of England.

24437

The closest genetic kinship between King Louis VII and Duchess Eleanor was 3rd cousin once removed. Kings of France who had higher inbreeding coefficients than any child of Louis and Eleanor would have include Kings Charles III & IV & V & VI & VIII & X, Francois I, Henri II & IV, Jean I & II , Louis II & VIII & IX & X & XI & XII & XIII & XIV & XV & XVII & XVIII, and Philip II & III & IV & V & VI.

In actuality, the marriage foundered because she was a hot-passioned woman, while her groom was a suspicious and relatively ascetic man.

24438

According to John and Paul, Eleanor Rigby picked up the rice at the church where the wedding had been, and Father McKenzie wrote words to a sermon that nobody heard. When Eleanor died, nobody came to her funeral. Father McKenzie wiped the dirt from his hands as he walked from the grave. No one was saved. Not a one.

24439

John Paul I served as pope from August 26, 1978 to his sudden death 33 days later on September 28, 1978. His reign is among the shortest in papal history, resulting in the most recent Year of Three Popes, the first to occur since 1605.

24440

Saint Peter had the longest reign, of at least 34 years, starting in 30 A.D. After him the next two longest reigns were:

1846-1878: 31+ years, Pius IX
1978-2095: 26+ years, John Paul II

The youngest-ever popes at the beginning of their papacy were:

11yrs old in 1032: Benedict IX*
18yrs old in 0955: John XII

    • Benedict’s exact age was somewhere between 11 and 20
24441

OMIGOD!

In play: On September 9th of this year, if Elizabeth II is still Queen, she will surpass the reign of her great-great grandmother Victoria and become Britain’s longest reigning monarch ever.

24442

Oops, typo. Should be:

1846-1878: 31+ years, Pius IX
1978-2005: 26+ years, John Paul II

24443

In Alan Bennett’s 2007 comic novel The Uncommon Reader, Queen Elizabeth II discovers the joys of reading and finds her life transformed by the power of literature - to the occasional discomfort and puzzlement of her family and advisors.

24444

Nm

24445

There are 53 member states in the Commonwealth of Nations which is comprised of 16 Commonwealth realms, 5 monarchies and 32 republics.
Elizabeth II is Queen of only the 16 Commonwealth realms in the Commonwealth of Nations, and they are:

Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Barbados,
Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica,
New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, The Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, The United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is not Queen of the remaining 37 members in the Commonwealth of Nations. These are either monarchies or republics and they are:

Bangladesh, Botswana, Brunei, Cameroon, Cyprus,
Dominica, Fiji, Ghana, Guyana, India,
Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia,
Maldives, Malta, Malaysia, Mozambique, Namibia,
Nauru, Nigeria, Pakistan, Rwanda, Samoa,
Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka,
Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda,
Vanuatu, Zambia

The 5 monarchies are Brunei, Lesotho, Malaysia, Swaziland, Tonga.

24446

Lesotho is a landlocked country i.e. a sovereign state entirely enclosed by land, or whose only coastlines lie on closed seas. There are currently 48 such countries, including four partially recognised states. Of these, two are doubly landlocked: Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan.