Other Uses of Dominoes

Other than playing games of strategy, another common pastime using domino tiles is to stand them on edge in long lines, then topple the first tile, which falls on and topples the second, etc., resulting in all of the tiles falling. Arrangements of thousands of tiles have been made that have taken several minutes to fall. By analogy, similar phenomena of chains of small events each causing similar events leading to eventual catastrophe are called domino effects.

The Netherlands has hosted an annual domino toppling exhibition called Domino Day since 1986. The event held on November 12, 2004 knocked over 4 million dominoes.