Final Jeopardy: European History (1-27-26)
The Final Jeopardy question (1/27/2026) in the category “European History” was:
Writing from prison to her père in 1793, she quoted the dramatist Corneille, “Crime makes the shame, and not the scaffold”
Semifinal 1 of the 2026 Tournament of Champions features: 16x champ, Scott Riccardi, an engineer from Somerville, NJ; 3x champ, Tom Devlin, an attorney from Washington, D.C.; and 4x champ, Allegra Kuney, a Ph.D. candidate from New Brunswick, NJ.
Round 1 Categories: California Geographic – Living Fossils – It Happened in 2025 – You’re My Soda Pop – That’s Entertainment – A Hard Scrabble Upbringing
Scott found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “California Geographic” under the $400 clue on the 19th pick of the round. He was in second place with $3,800, $1,200 less than Tom’s lead. Scott bet all of it and he was RIGHT.
Formerly Ocean View Avenue, this Monterey Street processed around 240,000 tons of sardines in 1945 show
Scott finished in the lead with $8,200. Tom was second with $7,400 and Allegra was last with $1,200. All clues were shown.
Round 2 Categories: Lighting Up the Enlightenment – Pen Names – Organizations – It’s a Fact – Women in Song – Latin Lovers
Scott found the first Daily Double in “Lighting Up the Enlightenment” under the $800 clue on the 15th pick of the round. He was in the lead with $15,400, $1,200 more than Tom in second place. Scott bet everything and he was RIGHT.
We’re all signatory to this, the title of a 1762 work by Rousseau show
On the very next pick, Scott got the last Daily Double in “Latin Lovers” under the $1,600 clue. In the lead with $30,800 now, he had $16,600 more than Tom in second place. Scott bet $6,000 and he was RIGHT.
Euripedes was famous for this Latin-phrased plot resolution; in “Orestes”, Apollo shows up & restores order show
Scott finished in the lead with a runaway $41,200. Tom was in second place with $19,000. Allegra was last with $7,600. All clues were shown.
NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right and, Mon Dieu!, they all had the same wrong response.
WHO IS CHARLOTTE CORDAY?
Charlotte Corday was just 10 days away from her 25th birthday when she was executed on July 17, 1793 for the murder of Jean-Paul Marat, a prominent journalist and politician of the French Revolution.
On her father’s side, Corday was a descendant of the Corneille family, famous for the dramatist brothers Pierre and Thomas. According to Bartleby, it is actually Thomas Corneille that Corday was quoting in the letter she wrote to her father while imprisoned.
Allegra went with Marie Antoinette. (She lost both parents long before she lost her head.) Allegra lost $6,700 and finished with $900.
Tom had Marie Antoinette, too. He didn’t bet a sou so his score remained $19,000.
Scott made it the Marie Antoinette trifecta. He also bet nothing, having already won the game with $41,200. Scott Riccardi is our first finalist. Ken pointed out that Scott’s $15,400 DD bet was the season’s largest (so far, we might add).
A triple stumper from each round:
IT HAPPENED IN 2025 ($1000) The Louvre robbers took a tiara of this empress, wife of Napoleon III, but dropped her crown with 1,354 diamonds
PEN NAMES ($2000) Hector Hugh Munro may have taken this pen name from a character in “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”
2 years ago: TWO of the players got this FJ in “NAMES IN HISTORY”
The scientific name of Jamaica’s ackee fruit honors this captain who brought it to England in 1793 show
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That’s why the year makes it more difficult, especially in European history.
It looked like this was going to be a battle between Scott and Tom until Scott blew the game wide open by finding back to back daily doubles and getting them both correct and putting the game away. Scott also set the record for the highest score going into Final this season which is 41,200.
That shows you why Scott Riccardi is the Heavy Favorite in this tournament.