Final Jeopardy: 20th Century History (7-15-26)
Here are some more clues from the 7/15/2026 Jeopardy! game. Please don’t put the answers to these clues in the comments so people who missed the game can have a chance to answer them. It is okay to refer to them by category and clue value or by part of the clue.
QUORTETS ($400) A category-appropriate synonym for this word: Booooring
($600) Lose your blues & give us this word that means physically &/or conceptually unrestrained
($1000) Per the OED, it’s “a popular dance involving arm movements mimicking… coupling rods
DOCTORS ($400) Dr. Samuel Katz helped develop a vaccine in 1963 to save millions of kids from this, also called rubeola
U.S. MOUNTAINS ($1200) This “A”-section of the Appalachians contains the highest peaks in both Pennsylvania & West Virginia
POEMS ($400) From what’s now Italy, not so bad in springtime, Robert Browning wrote “Oh, to be in” this country, “now that April’s there”
REAL & METAPHORICAL ROADS ($400) Per 19th c. humorist Josh Billings, the road to this synonym for disaster is wide “to accommodate the great amount of travel”
($2000) A real term from agriculture & commerce, this kind of southern “road” became a symbol of rural degradation from a 1932 novel
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SNEAK PEEK CATEGORY: BRITISH SONGSTRESSES
($400) She recorded her album “I Forgive You” during breaks in filming “Wicked”, like for an actors’ strike
($800) The foundation named for this singer who died 15 years ago has programmes for young women coming out of addiction
($1200) Member of Suede, girlfriend of Blur’s Damon Albarn & lead singer of Elastica, Justine Frischmann was the female face of this ’90s trend
($1600) Catherine is the full first name of this singer whose 1978 debut single went, “Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy”
($2000) In 2025 her songs, like “Madeline”, made it clear her marriage to David Harbour did not end well
ANSWERS: show
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I can’t believe Marisa said “What’s a hoe?” in the Jeopardy! Round.
I was 3/3 on DD and got FJ. I laughed a bit, because another person who died around that time was Patton, and ain’t nobody ever said he was peaceful!
One clue and one DD both were right in my wheelhouse. I took a class on Milton in my senior year, and, although I was a B.S. Bio major and French minor, the instructor tried briefly to convince me to go for an MA in English, then consider a PhD in Milton! I just took to it like a magnet to steel or moth to a flame. I still quote Paradise Lost to this day.
The other was the final clue in DJ. Dr Sam Katz – you know the phrase, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything”? I have nothing to say. Actually, I do. He was at Duke, and, first quarter, he talked to us emergency medicine residents. First thing he told us was that he created that vaccine. Then, he said, with a domineering air, “Any housestaff (residents) that don’t get the flu vaccine should be sent home!” Something about Duke, especially old days, was, when someone became an attending physician, they expected a god-like deference – as if every word out of their mouths was directly from the Almighty into their ear. Yeah, no. As they say, “never meet your heroes”. He wasn’t my hero, but he was still among the greats – and that made him insufferable.
Although, I did meet Dr Edwin Krebs (not related to Dr Hans Krebs, of the hated undergrad organic chemistry “Krebs Cycle), who shared the 1992 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine with Dr Edmond Fischer, for their work in working out phosphorylation. What we take for rote, now, was a terra nova for them. Dr Krebs was a funny guy, but probably because he wasn’t teaching a class!
We had a semblance of a game till the first DD appeared. When I was in London ages ago I visited the Times, inquiring about a possible job after college. The man I spoke with was the brother, I think, of a nice older woman from Australia I’d met earlier in another European country. Knew the 2nd DD (great movie with Burt Lancaster) and might have hit the 3rd had Caleb not jumped at it. Didn’t get Final, although I briefly considered FDR. “Gave his life” threw me off; I was thinking of someone more heroic like Gandhi, but he didn’t die until 1948. Caleb had such a lead that I knew he’d bet large at the end. Sure, it’s a risk, but where else in life will someone give you $22K for answering one question?
I did get that FJ from 2 years ago, even though “tech sergeant” didn’t lead me to it. Knew the 10-letter garden tool (Marisa dug herself into a big hole with “hoe”); rubeola (I had all the childhood diseases; chicken pox got me out of a 6th grade class trip to Connecticut to see “Henry IV Part I”); the A section of the Appalachians; and guessed the country to be in during April
I went to that Shakespeare theater in Stratford, CT when I was in 9th grade. I’m not sure but I think the play was Midsummer Night’s Dream. I do remember feeling carsick on the bus ride home.
Now that you mention it, I definitely recall going there twice, once for Lear and once for Midsummer, probably in jr high. But the only plays I remember reading were Julius C in 9th grade and Hamlet and Macbeth in 12th.
Hey, maybe we were there at the same time for Midsummer. 😎
I had chickenpox and rubeola before the vaccines came out but I never had the mumps.
Caleb now has the highest one day total of the season with 60,067 breaking his own biggest payday of Season 42 and becoming the 5th superchampion of Season 42. This season ties the record for the most amount of superchampions. Season 38 has 5 superchampions and this season also has 5 superchampions. Caleb is the fifth champion—following Austin Rogers, James Holzhauer, Matt Amodio, and Amy Schneider—to record winnings of $60,000 or more on at least two games. There are 7 games left this season.
Wow! Caleb really clobbered ’em today — the show included. Maybe he bet so big because he liked the FJ! category but it was still quite a risk! He could have ended up with less than $16K if he was wrong. But he still would have become a superchamp.