Final Jeopardy: United Nations Nations (9-30-15)
The Final Jeopardy question (9/30/2015) in the category “United Nations Nations” was:
This nation of 55 million is the only one to provide a Secretary-General but never to have a seat on the Security Council.
3x champ Matt Jackson had another great day yesterday. His $30K winnings bumped him up to $81,200. Think about that! He only needs $18,801 to go over over the $100K mark today! Of course, his final score has to be higher than both of these new challengers: Samantha Budesa, from Cookeville, TN; and Dennis Lloyd, from Madison, WI.
Round 1: Dennis found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Jesus” under the $1,000 clue before the first break. He was in the lead with $3,400, $2,400 more than Matt in second place. “It’s early,” he said, “Let’s make it a true Daily Double.” He came up with Mount Ararat but that was WRONG.
… ascended into heaven from atop this peak 40 days after his resurrection. show
Matt finished in the lead with $7,600. Samantha was second with $1,000 and Dennis was last with $600.
Round 2: Matt found the first Daily Double in “Inside the New York Times” under the $2,000 clue. He was in the lead with $8,800, $6,200 more than Samantha in second place. He bet $6,000 and he was RIGHT. “Boom!” he exclaimed (open the spoiler to see that).
In 2015 the Intl. NYT debuted a monthly digest of Times content in Chinese for these 2 administrative regions. show
Matt soon found the last Daily Double in “Painted Ladies” under the $1,600 clue. He now had the lead with $16,800, $14,200 more than Samantha in second place. He bet $4,000 and he was RIGHT again, but he didn’t go boom.
The lady in this Dutchman’s “A Lady Writing” wears a yellow jacket, hair ribbons & pearl earrings. show
Matt finished with his biggest runaway, so far: $34,800. Samantha was next with $3,400 and Dennis was in third place with $1,800.
NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
As Alex Trebek pointed out, there haven’t been that many nations to supply a Secretary-General to the United Nations. The number is actually 8. The current Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon comes from South Korea and the other 7 were from these countries: Norway, Sweden, Burma (Myanmar after 1989), Austria, Peru, Egypt and Ghana. Myanmar is the only one in that group that has never been on the Security Council.
The Security Council consists of 15 member countries, 5 of which are permanent (China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA). Ten non-permanent members are elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly. The U.N.’s site says that more than 60 member countries have never been on the Council. Learn more here.
Dennis came up with Iceland. That cost him $1,601 so he finished with $199.
Samantha thought it was Kenya. She lost her modest $201 bet and was left with $3,199.
Matt wrote down Ghana, and whoa! He lost a whole $10,000. But he still won the game with $24,800 and has a 4-day total of $106,000.
During the chat, Matt talked about throwing a big dinner party with some of his winnings to thank the people that helped him get to where he is, a splendid idea. We’re sure it will be first class all the way and there will still be plenty left for other goals and dreams. Congrats on passing that $100K milestone, Matt!
2 years ago:: ALL of the players got this FJ in “Inventors”
Last name of the man whose 1934 patent application for a tool is seen here. (image on recap) show
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As a question it was kinda tough. You had to course through your memory of UN Secy’s General, which was no big deal for Matt, but then (the security council piece being tricky) you had to go back through and figure which country fit the population figures. Ghana was not a bad guess, and Matt lives to fight another day.
The dinner party is a great idea!! Hope I get invited.
You seem to know this man fairly well. So, lol, how many trips did he make to LA?
It’s hard to believe a Jeopardy player would think Iceland could possibly have 55,000,000 people. That would rank it 24th in the world, whereas in reality it comes in at Number 179. In fact, there are 57 U.S. cities with a greater population than Iceland!
I just like to rub these things in, because basically, I have no life.
Another prediction gone south! Oh, well… I should have put in the population stats on the countries the players picked.
2015 figures from Statistics Times
Myanmar: 54,164,262
Kenya: 46,748,617
Ghana: 26,984,328
Iceland: 336,728
I’m guessing Matt and Samantha were looking at Kofi Annan, with only Matt getting his country right.
If Dennis was thinking of Dag Hammarskjold, that would be really funny because earlier this year, they had a clue about Dag asking what country he was from and all 3 players got it wrong. They came up with Denmark, Norway and Amsterdam. But Dennis could also have been thinking of Trygve Lie.
I first thought of Kofi Annan too, but then disregarded ’cause I knew Ghana didn’t have that large a population. So I drew a blank, oh well.
Matt decided to take his opponents out of their misery in the J! round, instead of demolishing them towards the end. Is he human? Maybe he is the offspring of Watson. 🙂
I don’t wanna jinx him, but I think it’s gonna take a big bet on a DD to do him in.
yeah, he’s lightening fast on that buzzer and very focused while his competitors seem to get rattled when they get a bad break.
Another big win tomorrow and he’ll be up there with Brennan Bushee and Dan Feitel on the TOC list.
I really hope he wins tomorrow. My bf keeps singing this old song to torment me.
LOL!! Some years ago they had an Absolut Vodka commercial that featured Boum! It was really cool.
Love it! Why can’t we have more intelligent commercials like that?
I thought it was Ghana as well. I think that Matt has surpassed Cathy Hardee’s total with the 100K milestone. I hope he wins again tomorrow