Final Jeopardy: Presidential Geography (4-15-20)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (4/15/2020) in the category “Presidential Geography” was:
This Midwest city is the burial place of one 19th century President & was named for a relative of another
Today is the last semi-final of the 2020 College Championship. Competing today: Nathaniel Miller, a sophomore (Yale Univ.); Marshall Comeaux, a sophomore (Univ. of Texas at Austin); and Xiaoke Ying, a sophomore (Univ. of Southern California)
Round 1 Categories: The Rocky Mountains – Unique College Courses – Non-American History – Extracurricular Activities – Sing Out! – 3-Letter Words
Nathaniel found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “The Rocky Mountains” under the $1,000 clue, with 8 clues left after it. He was in the lead with $5,600, $2,400 more than Marshall in second place. He bet $800 and guessed Boise. That was WRONG.
A state capital in the Rockies bears the name of this Native American people once found in the region. show
Nathaniel finished in the lead with $5,800. Marshall was second with $3,400 and Xiaoke was last with $2,600.
Round 2 Categories: World of Video Games – Poetry – The Elements With Style – “Ad”jectives – A Full Ride – Scholarship
Marshall found the first Daily Double in “Poetry” under the $2,000 clue on the third pick. He was in second place with $5,000 now, $800 less than Nathaniel’s lead. He made it a true Daily Double and he was RIGHT.
In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, he wrote, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” show
Marshall got the last Daily Double in “Elements with Style” under the $2,000 clue on the 15th pick. In the lead with $12,400, he had $2,200 more than Nathaniel in second place. He bet $3,000 and went with “luminium”. That was WRONG.
You’ll have that certain glow with this element discovered in 1669 & named for the way it glows in the dark. show
Marshall finished in the lead with $12,200. Nathaniel was next with $11,800 and Xiaoke was in third place with $10,200.
NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
WHAT IS CLEVELAND?
James A. Garfield, 20th U.S. President, died on 9/19/1881 in Elberon, NJ, 80 days after being shot by assassin Charles Guiteau. His remains were taken to Washington, D.C. to lie in state for 2 days, then transported to his home state of Ohio for burial in Cleveland. Read a detailed account of Garfield’s funeral on The Garfield Observer, with pictures that include the wreath sent by England’s Queen Victoria.
Wikipedia’s article on General Moses Cleaveland, founder of Cleveland, Ohio, relates how the “a” got dropped from the city’s name. Under “Relatives” it says: “Cleaveland is third cousin trice removed of Richard Falley Cleveland and his son Grover Cleveland.” Wikipedia also has an article with a sortable table of the Presidents’ burial places. It shows the other four presidents buried in Ohio: William Henry Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes (who attended Garfield’s funeral), William McKinley and Warren G. Harding.
Xiaoke wrote down Lincoln. She lost her $2,000 bet and finished with $8,200.
Nathaniel had the same response. That cost him $10,800 and left him with $1,000.
Marshall made Lincoln unanimous, only he added Nebraska. He lost his $11,401 bet for a $799 finish. That made Xiaoke Ying the third finalist. She will be joining Tyler and Nibir in the 2-day final for a chance to win $100,000.
A triple stumper from each round:
SING OUT! ($600) You can start a cover band & perform songs of this artist like “Party Monster” & “Call Out My Name”
“AD”JECTIVES ($2000) Old-timey word meaning fuzzy minded
(I said this word that I heard my father say my mother was, on occasion)
2 years ago: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “The Latin Vulgate Bible”
In Latin Jesus says, I am “via et veritas et vita”–in English, these 3 words show
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We almost had 3 men in the finals
But congratulations to the lady
I did not want to spoil the winner today
My guess is the two gentlemen.
Is Ohio considered Mid West?
Hi, George — yes, Ohio is considered Midwest. I don’t think of it as Midwest myself, but it is. Here’s a link to a list of Midwestern cities by size on Wikipedia. In the Top 10, Columbus, Ohio is No. 3 and Cleveland is No. 10 (those are 2017 population figures).
USC is the only one that has won before. We’ll start finding out when Indiana or Minnesota make it this time.
On a couple of the clues:
Xiaoke might be in for a little ribbing on that Babe Ruth reply to the clue about the baseball player who broke the color barrier. In a weird coincidence, one of the clues on Spoiler Talk this morning was “He witnessed the ends of the Earth while accompanying seven expeditions to the Arctic” in a 20th Century History category — they showed Matthew Henson’s picture with the clue. Kara Spak (a 6x winner at that point and later ToC player) said Admiral Byrd, who is white.
Also, Marshall went straight for the poetry category and aced the DD so I thought he that category must be in his wheelhouse. Then on the next clue he said “Pound” (a man) for a clue asking for a female poet !
@VJ, just watched the game. Lmao on her response. She won’t live that down. However, I attribute some responses to nerves. Not sure her circle of friends will. She made up for it by making the finals. Good for her.
True, Jacob, she lucked out today for sure — with a minimum $15K increase no matter what happens.
Today is the last Semi-Final Game, and I was hoping that Marshall Comeaux would pull through, and possibly win the whole thing. Geez, I was doing so well, in terms of picking rooting interests that would win their games, for the 1st 3 Days, and then, after Thursday’s Quarter-Final Game, things went downhill, and I could never seem to recover.
Tough FJ today and as I said before nobody knows about geography.
I was hoping for an all male final but since xiaoke won, there is a possibility she could turn things around in the finals just like how lille qing did previously. They weren’t that far off but did the hint Grover Cleveland threw the players off track a little bit, VJ? I also got Lincoln as well.
I don’t think so, Lou. Tyler or Nibir will easily win on Friday because they’re a lot faster.
Read the clue again, Lou. There is no hint about Grover Cleveland in it. Lincoln is named after Abraham Lincoln, not a relative. This was just a difficult clue and, imo, certainly the hardest FJ in the tournament so far, unless you already knew that particular bit of trivia.
I think this would have been a triple stumper in normal play, and maybe even a ToC setting. I mentioned this morning that I got the correct answer, but probably taking too much time. It’s a lot to parse what the clue is even asking, and then you have to be lucky to stumble upon the correct answer in your mental search of cities.
I agree, JP. It would have been better if that clue was in one of the Final games, considering that the first two sets of semi-finalists got relatively easy FJs.
And at least it would not have aired on the date that Lincoln died!!
I wonder if Lebron James would have known the fj. Although he grew up in Akron states tend to focus on history indigenous to their region in high school. Anyone on this board from that area who knew the correct response from that difficult worded clue? Just curious.