Dome Sweet Dome Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hadrian

Emperor of Rome from AD 117 until his death in AD 138, Hadrian is better known for ordering construction of a defensive wall in Roman Britain, which took about six years to build. Hadrian ordered construction of the new domed Pantheon on the site of a previous temple, also known as the Pantheon.

The Pantheon's dome, made of unreinforced concrete, weighs approximately 5,000 tons (4,535 metric tons). The oculus, which is the primary source of light for the interior, is 142 feet (43.3 meters) from the rotunda floor - the same distance as the dome's diameter. The Pantheon has inspired a number of domed structures during its lifetime, including the Rotunda, the original library building of the University of Virginia.

Answer: George Hale

Each of the astronomers listed in this question made significant contributions to the field. In the case of Chicago-born George Ellery Hale, he was responsible for three telescopes that were, at the time of their construction, considered to be the largest in the world. Those scopes were the 40-inch (102-centimeter) refractor telescope at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, and 60-inch (152-centimeter) and 100-inch (254-centimeter) reflectors at Mount Wilson Observatory in Los Angeles County, California. The 200-inch scope at Palomar, in fact, supplanted the 100-inch reflector at Mount Wilson as the largest scope in the world when it began operation.

In addition to pioneering large optical telescopes, Hale invented the spectrohelioscope, a telescope that allowed the Sun to be viewed in a selected wavelength of light. He was also one of the developers of the spectroheliograph, a device that records images of the Sun at a selected wavelength of light. Hale died in 1938 - ten years before his namesake telescope at Palomar saw its first light.

Answer: Islam

Hagia Sophia served as a cathedral for the Eastern Orthodox faith during two different stretches - from 537 to 1204 and again from 1261 to 1453. In between those two runs, after Constantinople (as Istanbul was then known) was captured during the Fourth Crusade, it served as a Roman Catholic cathedral. When Constantinople fell to the forces of Sultan Mehmed II, he ordered the cathedral converted into a mosque. The sultan also instructed that the building be renovated due to its dilapidated state.

The great dome of Hagia Sophia was damaged several times by earthquakes. Most notably, it collapsed completely after an earthquake in 558, and was rebuilt in 562. And a partial collapse after an earthquake in 989 forced another reconstruction which was completed in 984. Because of the renovations, the dome took on an elliptical shape, spanning 101 feet (30.7 meters) on its short axis and 102.5 feet (31.2 meters) on its long axis. Hagia Sophia was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.

Answer: St. Paul

St. Paul's Cathedral was one of the many thousands of buildings that was lost to the Great Fire of London in September, 1666. Famed architect Sir Christopher Wren led the effort to rebuild the church, starting in earnest in 1667 and officially ended with a declaration by Parliament in 1711. Wren was laid to rest at the cathedral after his death in 1723, and the funerals of other notable people, including Lord Horatio Nelson and Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill were held there.

The dome topping the cathedral was actually built as a triple dome - three domes nested inside one another. The exterior dome, topped with a lantern, rises to a height of 365 feet (111 meters). The interior dome rises to a height of 213 feet (65 meters) above the cathedral floor. Between the two domes lies the third, conically-shaped dome that provides structural support for the exterior dome.

St. Paul's became a symbol of resolve during World War II. Despite attempts to destroy the structure by the Germans, it remained standing. Davies and Wyllie led the effort to defuse a time-delayed bomb that had fallen into the soft soil near the cathedral and remove it to the Hackney Marshes for detonation. The bomb left a crater 100 feet (30 meters) wide when it exploded.

Answer: An Ice Capades show

John H. Harris, who had managed the old Duquense Gardens in Pittsburgh prior to the construction of Civic Arena, developed the Ice Capades in 1940, after seeing how successful figure skating exhibitions had been during the intermission of ice-hockey games. The Ice Capades opened Civic Arena, a structure originally built to serve the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, which had previously put on performances outdoors at Pitt Stadium. Legendary comic actress Carol Burnett gave the signal to open the dome for the first time during the Opera's performance on July 4, 1962. The Opera moved out of the arena in 1972. The Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League, who displaced the Pittsburgh Hornets of the American Hockey League and began play at the Civic Arena in 1967, became the primary tenant, remaining there until 2010.

The dome of the Civic Arena, which was covered with stainless steel, was divided into eight sections. Two of those eight sections were fixed, while the other six could be shuttled underneath them in less than three minutes. The dome had a diameter of 415 feet (126 meters) and was supported externally by a 260-foot (79-meter) steel arch, giving spectators inside unobstructed views. Efforts to turn Civic Arena into a landmark failed, and the demolition of the facility was completed on March 31, 2012.

Answer: Norfolk, Virginia

Architects Brad Tazewell and Jim Williams were inspired to build the Scope in Norfolk after seeing the Pallazetto dello Sport and the larger Pallazo dello Sport on television. With Nervi on board, the Scope supplanted Assembly Hall at the University of Illinois in Champaign as the world's largest reinforced concrete dome - measuring 440 feet (134 meters) in diameter and 110 feet (34 meters) in height. Twenty-four flying buttresses were built to support the massive dome, enclosing a seating bowl that accommodated up to 8,700 spectators for ice hockey, over 10,000 for basketball, and nearly 14,000 for concerts.

The Scope served as the first host of the NCAA Women's Final Four basketball tournament in 1982 and 1983. And it has also served as home ice of the Norfolk Admirals hockey team.

After the implosion of the Kingdome in Seattle in 2000, the Scope regained its title as world's largest reinforced concrete dome.

Answer: NCAA Women's Final Four

Although the Kingdome gave both the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball and the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League a "dome-field" advantage with its loud crowds, it was the Seattle Sounders of the old North American Soccer League who opened the building with a game against the New York Cosmos in April, 1976.

In addition to hosting the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl in 1977, the Kingdome hosted the MLB All-Star Game in 1979, and the NBA All-Star Game in 1987 (for which Seattle SuperSonics forward Tom Chambers won MVP honors with a game-high 34 points).

The Kingdome also hosted three NCAA Men's Final Four basketball championships (1984, 1989, and 1995). The dome itself measured 660 feet (201 meters) in diameter and rose to a height of 250 feet (76 meters), making it one of the largest concrete structures ever imploded.

Answer: Chapel Hill

Chemist John Motley Morehead III decided to donate a planetarium to his alma mater, the flagship campus of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, after talking to noted astronomer Harlow Shapley, who declared that the people of the state were most ignorant of all Americans in matters of astronomy. Morehead not only consulted with Shapely in the design of the planetarium, he went to Sweden, where he had previously represented the United States as an ambassador, to get the facility's Zeiss projector.

Between 1959 and 1975, the men who would make history during the first phases of the American space program came to Morehead for training. That training came in handy on several occasions, most notably during the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission of 1970. In 2002, the facility's name was changed to Morehead Planetarium and Science Center, reflecting its expanded role as a place to learn about scientific disciplines beyond astronomy.

Answer: Quezon City, Philippines

The centerpiece of an entertainment and shopping complex located in the most populous city in metropolitan Manila, Araneta Coliseum has hosted a number of notable events during its lifetime. Among them is the third and final fight between legendary boxers Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in October, 1975, known as "The Thrilla in Manila".

It was also one of two venues used to host the 1978 FIBA World Championship, and it hosted the Philippines World Pool Championship in 2007. "The Big Dome" has also long hosted pro basketball games of the Philippine Basketball Association and college basketball games the National Collegiate Athletic Association (which is not related to or affiliated with a similarly-named organization in the United States).

The dome of Araneta Coliseum is 354 feet (108 meters) in diameter, and rises to a height of 140 feet (43 meters).

Answer: As an industrial exhibition hall

The face of warfare changed forever at 8:15 AM local time on August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb "Little Boy" detonated about 1,900 feet (579 meters) above Hiroshima, Japan. The bomb was intended to explode over Aioi Bridge, a distinctive T-shaped bridge at the junction of the Honkawa and Motoyasu rivers, but it missed its target.

It exploded, instead, nearly directly over the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, which was designed by Czech architect Jan Letzel and was used to showcase the region's industrial production capabilities. Though part of the building survived, including the steel frame of the dome that capped the building, everyone inside was killed by the blast. Hiroshima's city council determined in 1966 that the ruins should be preserved into perpetuity, and as such it became the centerpiece of a memorial park that was laid out on the site between 1950 and 1964. Work has been done to ensure the ruins remain stable in the face of continued weathering, but the structure otherwise remains as it was the day it was bombed.