Whether playing the game or toppling the game pieces, dominoes make for a fun diversion.
by Rich Watson
The game of dominoes goes at least all the way back to thirteenth century China. Europe popularized it, in a different form, during the eighteenth century, especially France. Today it’s known and played all over the world.
At one point it became popular to stand domino tiles up and knock them down, not as a game but as an activity. Called “domino toppling” or the “domino effect” or a “chain reaction,” people arrange thousands of them in elaborate patterns, sometimes with devices that help trigger the chain reaction, and watch them fall one by one.
How did that get started?
