Final Jeopardy: Organizations (4-17-24)

The Final Jeopardy question (4/17/2024) in the category “Organizations” was:

The press called the donations received after this org.’s 1938 founding “a silver tide which actually swamped the White House”

4x champ Alison Betts, a writer & creative exec. orig. from San Jose, CA, took her winnings to $107,700 yesterday. In Game 4, she takes on these two players: Vidya Ravella, a business development exec orig. from Skokie, IL; and Jeff Plate, an attorney from Asbury Park, NJ.

Round 1 Categories: History of Yosemite – The Original Language – Putting the Gory in a Movie Category – Inventors & Inventions – Channel Orange – Ends With “B”

Vidya found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Inventors & Inventions” under the $1,000 clue with 9 clues left after it. She was in last place with $600, $3,000 less than Alison’s lead. Vidya bet $1,000 and she was RIGHT.

Many great ships once communicated with the world from a room named for this Italian inventor show

WHO IS MARCONI?

Alison finished in the lead with $3,600. Vidya and Jeff were tied in second place with $2,200. All clues were shown.

Round 2 Categories: Our Floundering Fathers – Things to Do in the City – Animal Life – “F” is for Food – TV Music – Words From Mythology

Alison found the first Daily Double in “Things to Do in the City” under the $1,600 clue on the 4th pick of the round. She was in second place with $4,800, $1,000 less than Vidya’s lead. Alison made it a true Daily Double and she was RIGHT.

In June, take in the “White Nights” of this city; after 19 hours of daylight, bridges across the Neva are raised at night so boats pass show

WHAT IS ST. PETERSBURG?

Vidya found the last Daily Double in “Words from Mythology” under the $1,600 clue on the 6th pick of the round. She was in second place with $6,600, $3,000 less than Alison’s lead. Vidya bet $6,000 and said Aurora. That was WRONG.

This shield or breastplate of the gods now means the protection of any powerful entity show

WHAT IS THE AEGIS?

Alison finished in the lead with a runaway $12,800. Jeff was in second place with $5,400. Vidya was last with negative $1,400 and out of the game at this point. All clues were shown.

Only ONE of the contestants left in Final Jeopardy! got it right.

WHAT IS THE MARCH OF DIMES?

In 1938, FDR founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP), which became commonly known as The March of Dimes thanks to popular showman Eddie Cantor. Infantile paralysis is another name for poliomyelitis, polio for short. FDR himself was diagnosed with polio and became paralyzed from the waist down, although he was an adult at the time. Eddie Cantor also encouraged everyone to send dimes to the White House with this pitch: “if a million people send only one dime, the total will be $100,000.” This resulted in over 80,000 letters arriving at the White House “to the extent that official correspondence to the President was literally buried in an avalanche of donations, a total of 2,680,000 dimes or $268,000.” FDR died in 1945. The dime was redesigned a year later to honor him.

After the Salk (late 1950s) and Sabin (early 1950s) vaccines virtually eradicated polio, the organization changed its focus and in 1976 changed its name to the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. In 2007 it was renamed again as the March of Dimes Foundation but faces an uncertain future in the wake of funding problems.

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Jeff thought it was the Salvation Army. He lost $1,204 and finished with $4,196.

Alison got it right. She added $1,000, winning today’s game with $13,800 and guaranteeing her place in the next Tournament of Champions. Alison’s 5-day total is $121,500.

A triple stumper from each round:

INVENTORS & INVENTIONS ($800) Hiram Maxim wrote that inventing a killing machine gets you more credit than easing suffering after this type of gun made him rich

THINGS TO DO IN THE CITY ($2000) Ride one of Africa’s first metros or visit the Casbah & feel like Charles Boyer in the movie named for this city

More clues on Page 2

2 years ago: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “History”

Intimately familiar with World War I, Churchill considered this war from some 150 years before the “first world war” show

WHAT IS THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR?

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