Final Jeopardy: American History (7-27-18)

Today’s Final Jeopardy question (7/27/2018) in the category “American History” was:

The last survivor of this battle that started a war died in 1854 & more men marched at his funeral than fought with him

New champ Rick Terpstra, an aspiring English teacher from Pennsylvania, won $23,201 yesterday. In his second game and the last game of the season, his challengers are : Karla Nickels, a retired business & property manager from Oklahoma; and Jerry Tsai, a data scientist from California.

BIG THANKS to all my visitors and commenters for keeping me company throughout Season 34. It certainly had its highlights and we had a lot of fun with our guessing games and chatting about the clues. One of those highlights, the 2017 Tournament of Champions, will be shown again beginning next Monday.

Round 1 Categories: Travel Hawaii – Quick Books – Quotable Women – The Worst Picture Razzie – Sounds Like It to Me – Keep on Truckin’

Rick found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Quick Books” under the $600 clue on the 11th pick of the round. He was in a tie for the lead with Karla. They both had $1,600, $200 more than Jerry in second place. He made it a true Daily Double and he was RIGHT.

1813: Ms. Bennet confronts 2 specific things. show

Jerry finished in the lead with $5,200. Rick was second with $4,200 and Karla was last with $2,400.

Round 2 Categories: Classical Music Terms – Around the Body – Defunct Sports Franchises – Norse Gods – Found in Translation – The U.S. Congress With Nancy Pelosi

Jerry found the first Daily Double in “Around the Body” under the $1,200 clue on the 4th pick. He was in the lead with $6,000 now, $1,000 more than Rick in second place. He bet $3,000 and he was RIGHT.

Named for the way they release secretions, they’re the body’s 2 main types of glands. show

Rick found the last Daily Double in “Defunct Sports Franchises” under the $1,600 clue under the 12th pick. In second place with $7,800, he had $4,400 less than Jerry’s lead. He bet $2,000 and he was RIGHT.

In 1914 & 1915 the Terrapins repped this town in baseball’s upstart Federal League. show

Jerry finished in the lead with $18,200. Rick was next with $14,200 but a reversal (see below) bumped him up to $17,400. Karla was in third place with $5,600.

NONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT IS THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON?

In Harper’s Young People, Vol. 2 (1881), historian Benson J. Lossing recounts his 1848 visit with Jonathan Harrington, “The Fifer of Lexington,” who was only 17 years old at the 4/19/1775 “Battle of Lexington.” (“It wasn’t a battle,” Jonathan says, “only a skirmish.”) Lossing kept track of Harrington, who died 6 years later: “Late in March 1854, when he was almost ninety-six years of age, Jonathan Harrington died, and was buried with public honors. In the funeral procession was a large body of military as an escort, and the hearse was followed by the committee of arrangements, the Governor of Massachusetts, the Lieutenant-Governor and Council, and a vast multitude of citizens gathered from the neighboring towns. After impressive religious services in the church at Lexington, his remains were deposited in the family tomb. Sacred be the memory of the Fifer of Lexington!”

The Liberator also noted Harrington’s passing (“Last Survivor of the Battle of Lexington”) in its April 7, 1854 issue (on the third page, 4th column, where the 1st item is a letter from poet John Greenleaf Whittier, and the second is a news item calling President Pierce “a stool pigeon for the South.”



Karla didn’t have a response and she didn’t bet anything. She remained at $5,600.

Rick thought it was Bunker Hill. He lost $801, leaving him with $16,599.

Jerry came up with Fort Sumter. That cost him $16,801. Rick Terpstra remains the Jeopardy! champ, with a 2-day total of $39,800. See you in September, Rick!

Final Jeopardy (7/27/2018) Rick Terpstra, Karla Nickels, Jerry Tsai

Reversal: FOUND IN TRANSLATION ($1600) To lean or tilt to one side — Of course, you knew $3,200 was coming Rick’s way after Alex rejected his response of “slant” because the preferred response was “list.”

A triple stumper from each round:

QUOTABLE WOMEN ($1000) She once remarked, “Freaks was a thing that I photographed a lot”

THE U.S. CONGRESS WITH NANCY PELOSI ($2000) In 2009 I proudly unveiled the capitol portrait of this first African-American woman elected to Congress, who said she wanted to be remembered as a catalyst for change

2 years ago: Only ONE of the players got this FJ in “Colleges & Universities”

This Catholic university gets its name from the Latin for “new” & “house” & was in the news in Spring 2016. show

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31 Responses

  1. VJ says:

    I just saw Alex Trebek on “Orange is the New Black.” It was funny!

  2. Curtis says:

    Didn’t anyone catch the error in the question? The battle that started the revolutionary war was 1775 at Lexington. The battle that started the civil war was the battle of Bull Run or 1st Manassas. That was about 1854. How did this question make it through the screeners?

    • VJ says:

      @Curtis, in the clue, 1854 referred to the year the last survivor of Lexington died. See the information in the recap.

      @Albert and David, I’m pretty sure that just Concord would not be acceptable but I don’t know how they would have handled a Lexington-Concord response

  3. VJ says:

    Yes, JJ, I will miss all the fun and I hope you will stop by over the weekend when I update the Clue Responses post. Most likely, I will still put up Spoiler Talk and have a link to the old recap on there.

    Also, if anyone’s interested in some geography, I bought some puzzles of the continents that I am getting next week and hope to put up some posts on each one over the break.

    I’m also going to give them to my daughter and son-in-law to put together for a week and then I’m gonna get out the old stopwatch and have a contest and give a prize to the one who can put the puzzles together fastest.

  4. JJ says:

    OMG…the season is over and I’ll miss all of the fun banter with everyone! (Well, most of you… if you know where I’m going with this.)
    @VJ- You rock, my darlin’! I SO look forward to your wise and level-headed words of wisdom day in and day out! On the very rare occasions when things get out of control here, you always bring back the sanity. Thank you for all that you do!
    And okay, I must admit that I’ll also miss my Belligerant (and Beautiful) Bunny Buddy! She rocks, too…
    See ya in a few weeks, y’all! 🙂

    • rhonda says:

      Aw, Genghis Godizilla Grape, I will miss you and your great gift of gab and good humor, too! I also must admit that you’re a great Grape Nut!

  5. Albert says:

    My guess was Lexington & concord so I guess I would have been ruled incorrect, right?

  6. David Lipke says:

    Would Lexington-Concord be accepted as a correct response?

  7. Becci says:

    Here’s a little song to take you through until September.

  8. David Letizia says:

    Disappointed that Alex thought that Ft. Sumter occurred in 1860 …

  9. John B./I. says:

    @VJ, Never heard of a typo? And once he is a teacher I hope he will inspire his students. I do know the difference between “inspiring” and “aspiring”, as well as the difference between “affect” and “effect” etc. etc. Mistakes happen.

    • VJ says:

      Geez, John, take it easy. I thought you had misread the word and whether you misread a word or it’s a typo, it can be quite amusing and to me, that was amusing.

  10. rhonda says:

    Another clairvoyant choice by you with Sharon Stone coming up today, VJ!
    Thanks as always for all you do for us here and for making it so much fun!

    • VJ says:

      Thank you, Rhonda, and yes! lol. When that Sharon Stone clue came up, I thought “this is crazy!” Too bad this doesn’t work with the lottery. ha ha ha

      LINK: 8 more clues from the match

  11. Louis says:

    I am glad that we all got a chance to keep you company for the entire jeopardy ride of season 34. Much appreciated in what you do here and I will definitely see you back here for season 35. Plus, today’s game was a shock. But I can commend Karla not betting anything. Bunker hill is in New Jersey so it wasn’t a bad guess but the fort Sumter response not even close. Jerry took a big risk and it didn’t pay off for him. Had he bet less or nothing at all he would have won. This wasn’t a tough question at all since its American history we are talking about here. I wonder how nobody knew Lexington, VJ? I look forward to seeing the highlights of the tournament of champions.

    • John B./I. says:

      @Louis
      Um, Bunker Hill is also in MA, as are Lexington,Concord,Cambridge,Lincoln and Arlington (then named Menotomy). All those towns are even in the same county, Middlesex and they were all involved in skirmishes, the Lexington one being the first. There is a Bunker Hill in Paterson, NJ. It’s a part or district of Paterson but is not the Bunker Hill where the battle took place. That was Bunker Hill in Charlestown, MA.
      There are many places named Bunker Hill in New England, mostly so named because they have/are a golf course…..

  12. John B./I. says:

    An “inspiring teacher” not only gets an American history FJ wrong, but also anticipated that the others wouldn’t get it. Karla had no response, Jerry was about 100 years off and in the wrong war. At least Rick was in the right state and in the war that preceded FJ. What a downer to end the season. But Rick might get in the ToC, we will just have to wait till September.

    • John Christian Ambion says:

      Wowie. We end this season on a triple stumper FJ on American history, but Rick did something modest while Jerry took a step too far. Who knows, maybe in six weeks time, he will be in the November 2018 ToC. @John, I have a question, did most of the players stump FJ on world geography or American history?

      • John B./I. says:

        @John Christian, World geography and (world) history are 2 of the most dreaded categories in J and the success rate is not exactly high, to put it mildly. THIS U.S. history FJ however was really tough, hence those many ZERO predictions, though in general players do better in U.S. than foreign geography on average, especially when it is – as often is the case- combined with ancient history

    • VJ says:

      Most amusing, John. He is an ASpiring ENGLISH teacher and this was a tough FJ, as evidenced by the number of people who predicted no one would get it.

      • John Christian Ambion says:

        No, @VJ. In the entirety of Season 34, which FJ subject got the most triple stumpers, on American history or on world geography?

        • VJ says:

          @John Christian, my comment was directed to John B, not you. I am long used to calling him just John and I will always address you as John Christian so you know the difference.

          As for your question, I see that John has answered it which is good because I can only offer an opinion. Generally, I think the players do better on history than geography but I don’t keep track

      • John B./I. says:

        I SAID he was in the right state and war (see my comment above…) Of the 3 players Rick came closest.And regardless what he will teach, he and the other 2 were/are Americans. I also said that this WAS a tough FJ. So I meant This rather as a compliment. The quotation marks were not meant to be disparaging, just that I don’t know exactly what “inspiring” entails. Please don’t always try to interpret my posts in the worst possible way. If you do, you are mistaken. When there is something really outrageous then I say so.
        I guess you did not read the post I put up to John Christian and you at 6:11, since you posted before. PLEASE read it. Maybe you can see fit not to hate my guts so much?? Thank You.

        • John B./I. says:

          @VJ
          And I also said that his bet was smart, so if anything I gave Rick rather high marks for this difficult FJ. I guess you did not read the positive parts…..

        • VJ says:

          What I find amusing is that you said he was an “inspiring” teacher. He is an “aspiring” teacher. I don’t hate your guts. In fact, you amaze me. You know that there’s a Bunker Hill section in Paterson, NJ but you don’t know the difference between “inspiring” and “aspiring”?

  13. Richard Corliss says:

    It wasn’t Karla’s day, she couldn’t get any rhythm going today. The guys were too fast for her.