Final Jeopardy: 1960s America (6-14-24)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (6/14/2024) in the category “1960s America” was:
Helping draft an Executive Order in 1961, Hobart Taylor Jr. almost used the word “positive”, but instead chose this alliterative phrase
12x super champ Adriana Harmeyer, an archivist from West Lafayette, IN, has now won $278,500. In Game 13, she competes against: Susan Ayoob, a content strategist from San Francisco, CA; and Kaitlin Tarr, an aspiring ceramicist from Denver, CO.
Round 1 Categories: 1824 – Setting Pretty – That’s a Fact – Rhyming Phrases – Jen – Tonic
Adriana found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Setting Pretty” under the $600 clue on the 15th pick of the round. She was in second place with $1,800, $600 less than Susan’s lead. Adriana bet $1,000 and she was RIGHT.
The first act of this Verdi opera takes place in the king’s palace in Memphis (not Tennessee) show
Adriana finished in the lead with $7,200. Kaitlin was second with $3,800 and Susan was last with $3,000. All clues were shown.
Round 2 Categories: Around Scotland – American Poets – Till Death Do Us Part – No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 – Foreign Words & Phrases – Another Day in Parasites
Kaitlin found the first Daily Double in “Foreign Words & Phrases” under the $1,200 clue on the 11th pick of the round. She was in the lead with $8,600, $600 more than Adriana in second place. Kaitlin bet $3,000 and tried “vida”, but she knew that was WRONG.
”Health” in Spanish; you’re wishing someone good health when you toast them saying this word show
Kaitlin found the last Daily Double in “Another Day in Parasites” under the $1,200 clue on the 14th pick. She was in second place with $7,600 now, $400 less than Adriana’s lead. Kaitlin bet $2,000 and she was RIGHT.
Anopheles mosquitoes transmit one-celled parasites of the genus plasmodium to humans causing this sometimes-fatal disease show
Kaitlin finished in the lead with $12,800. Adriana was second with $12,400 and Susan was last with $10,200. All clues were shown.
Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
WHAT IS AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?
Hobart Taylor, Jr. was an attorney whose father was a close friend of Lyndon B. Johnson, JFK’s Vice President. Johnson asked Taylor to help draft what would become Executive Order 10925 — Establishing the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Taylor worked on the document with future Supreme Court Justices, Arthur Goldberg and Abe Fortas.
In an interview for the LBJ Library archives, Taylor explained how he came up with the phrase he is credited with coining: “I was searching for something that would give a sense of positiveness to performance under that executive order, and I was torn between the words ‘positive action’ and the words ‘affirmative action.'” He said he chose ‘affirmative action’ because it was alliterative.
Of course, he had no way of knowing how fond of alliterative phrases future Jeopardy! clue writers would be or that his name would one day be in a Final Jeopardy! clue because of that choice.
Susan didn’t have a response. She bet and lost her whole $10,200.
Adriana got it right. She added $8,100 and finished with $20,500.
Kaitlin didn’t have a response either. She lost her $410 bet. That dropped her into second place with $12,390, and made Adriana the winner. Adriana’s 13-day total is $299,000.
A triple stumper from each round:
AMERICAN POETS ($2000) Sparing him a treason trial, this poet was declared insane in 1946 & spent the next 12 years in a hospital
TILL DEATH DO US PART ($800) After he passed away on Halloween in 1926, his widow Bess held annual seances on that date to try to make contact with him
2 years ago: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE”
Brazil stretches 2,700 miles from the Atlantic in the east to Serra do Divisor National Park on the border with this country in the west show
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The poet who was declared insane was a propagandist for Mussolini and the fascist movement having made radio broadcasts from Italy to the world. He was diagnosed as insane but that was so he could remain in an asylum rather than go to prison in the United States.
He was captured by the allies after WWII and was tried but found to be mentally incompetent by a psychiatrist. But he got favored treatment because of his position as a great poet.
I was 2/3 on DD and, missed FJ with no answer. This was a good game. As usual, I got about half of the TS.
What a terrific contest. Tough but fair Final. Once again, Adriana wrote down her answer quickly, so I knew she had it. Friday shows can be tough on a multi-day champ because it’s usually the 5th taping of the day.
Adriana’s wager was to lock out Susan in case both got FJ correct. Kaitlin’s was perplexing to me ($410). She may have (wrongly) thought that Adriana would wager $401, so she bet small. But Kaitlin would have lost even if she hit FJ, as it played out. She was more or less obligated to bet large.
I knew right away who died on Halloween 1926. The cattle breed wasn’t too difficult to pin down. The Russian subordinate came to me quickly thanks to a Poli Sci class I took in 1970. (Just don’t ask what I ate for lunch today.)
I was surprised that none of the contestants came up with the man who died on October 31, 1926. I mean, there were other clues as well so who else could it have possibly been?
The only clues about that person were he died on Halloween and had a wife named Bess who tried to contact him by seance after he died. Ironically, although Bess and her husband conducted seances early in their careers to make money, he disavowed the practice and worked at exposing fakes. I can’t imagine that Bess genuinely believed she could contact him after death.
Kaitlin obviously focused on the wife’s name to come up with Truman.
It was a good game, and not a runaway. Anyways, I came up with “Affirmative…………”, for FJ, but it was obviously incomplete.
For the first time in her entire run, Adriana is not in the lead heading into Final. But she survives a scare after her challengers drew a complete blank. She is now in 14th place in all-time winnings and has now tied with Matt Jackson and Ray Lalonde at 13 wins. Adriana has swept back-to-back weeks.