Final Jeopardy: 1930s America (8-5-21)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (8/5/2021) in the category “1930s America” was:
Unpopular at the time, the man for whom it is named wasn’t invited to the September 30, 1935 dedication of this landmark
11x champ Matt Amodio, a PhD student from New Haven, CT has now won $368,600, after winning yesterday’s game with $6,200! In Game 12, he is up against: Ashley Rayner, a librarian from Chicago, IL; and James Weldon, an emerging markets investor from Cambridge, MA.
Round 1 Categories: Etymology – World War II -Recent Pop Culture – Cooking Verbs – The Interior Department – Let’s Take It Outside
Matt found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Etymology” under the $1,000 clue on the 3rd pick of the round. He was in first place with $1,000. Ashley and James weren’t on the board yet. Matt bet it all and he was RIGHT.
This term for your setting or environment is French for “middle place”. show
Matt finished in the lead with $6,600. Ashley was next with $4,200 and James was in third place with $2,400. No clues went uncovered.
Round 2 Categories: I’m Your Huckleberry – Extinct Animals – Around the World – Name the Movie King – A Poet Laureate – Stand “Pat”
Matt found the first Daily Double in “A Poet Laureate” under the $1,200 clue on the 3rd pick. Matt was in first place with $8,600, $4,400 more than Ashley in second place. He wagered $4,000 and took a shot with Massachusetts. That was WRONG.
The Poet Laureate of this state, like Marie Howe, receives the Walt Whitman Citation; Walt was from that state. show
On the very next selection, Matt snagged the last Daily Double in “Around the World” under the $1,600 clue. Still in the lead, Matt had $4,600 now, only $400 more than Ashley. He bet $4,000 again in an effort to make back what he just lost and, this time, he was RIGHT. (Did you hear Alex say “No harm, no foul”?)
This African capital due south of Sicily got its name from a region with 3 ancient Phoenician cities. show
Matt finished in the lead with a runaway $23,000. Ashley was next with $9,000 and James was in third place with $6,000. No clues went uncovered.
Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
On the American Experience part of its site, PBS addressed the controversy over the naming of the Hoover dam. Initially, the choices were between Boulder Canyon and Black Canyon with the nod going to Boulder Canyon until 9/17/1930. Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur kicked off the project on that day by naming it the Hoover Dam in honor of “the great engineer whose vision and persistence … has done so much to make it possible.” Herbert Hoover was also the president at the time. With the nation in the grip of the Great Depression, however, naming the dam after Hoover was highly unpopular when many blamed the Depression on the president.
In spite of this, the project was called the Hoover Dam in all official documents and bills until 1933. That’s when FDR’s Interior Secretary, Harold Ickes stripped the former President’s name from the project and went back to Boulder Dam. “Ickes carried his snubbing of Hoover all the way to the day of the dam’s dedication. ‘This great engineering achievement,’ Ickes said, ‘should not carry the name of any living man but, on the contrary, should be baptized with a designation as bold and characteristic and imagination-stirring as the dam itself.'” Hoover’s name was restored to the dam 12 years later on 4/30/1947 when President Harry S. Truman signed House Resolution 140.
James thought it was Mt. Rushmore. He bet and lost it all.
Ashley wrote down “Washington”. That cost her $3,001. She landed in second place with $5,999.
Matt crossed off Mt. Rushmore in favor of the correct response. He added $3,000 to his score and won the game with $26,000. Matt’s 12-day total is $394,600.
A triple stumper from each round:
THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT ($1000) Though her last name sounds like a European country, this Interior Secretary is the first Native American to head a cabinet department
A POET LAUREATE ($1600) Named the first-ever National Youth Poet Laureate of the U.S. in 2017, she put in a Super Bowl appearance 4 years later
3 years ago: TWO of the players got this FJ in “FAMOUS NAMES”
Almost 100 when he died in 2018, this North Carolina man became just the 4th private citizen to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol
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Wow! Matt is just stunning! He’s almost to $400,000. Can he make it? We’ll find out tomorrow,
P.S. I’m glad he got back his $4,000 after losing it on the 2nd Daily Double in the game.
Tomorrow Matt goes for his 13th.
Friday the 13th? (I hope I’m not jinxing him)
I worked on three-hour documentary by Dr. Andrew D. Kaplan (shown on some US public TV stations) called “In Search Of Walt Whitman.” I was historical consultant, film advisor, and script editor on the docu about the 19th century newspaper journalist and noted poet (1819-1892). But I am sure I would have known What is New York? multi decades before that. Now if it had been in a dreaded sports category I probably would have been beyond clueless (though I did get the What are When and Where? from the Who’s On First? baseball comedy routine by chance).
Go Matt go!
Ashley kept it close for a while. I was thinking we might have another librarian (like Emma B) taking down a long-running champion. Matt didn’t have his ‘A game’ today, but it was more than enough.
@DC, I mentioned the librarian possibility to Nikki this morning but she predicted Matt would win the game based upon the Roscoe factor.
Roscoe the cat starting watching Jeopardy for the first time when Matt came on. The only day he didn’t watch it was yesterday so she thought Matt was going to lose, but he did lose that big FJ bet so Roscoe got the blame for that. lol
Ha. Ha. That’s a good story. A little like rock, paper, scissors. Just need a 3rd thing. So far we have cat scratches librarian or something.
I remember when Nikki was filling in she had one cat that posed perfectly during her video tribute to you and she remarked that she had at least one other cat that would never have cooperated so patiently.
Hope you’re feeling better btw.
Thanks DC, yeah, Boris was the cat posing in the video.
That second daily double was a bit of a challenge. Even I thought of Massachusetts as well since Whitman had a bridge named after him in Pennsylvania. That’s how it goes. I guess Matt just seems to like to take on the bottom row clues instead of the top row. Congrats to him on game 12!
Hoover dam was also my response. but Was ashley thinking of the washington Monument? If so she must have not read the clue and just made a bad guess.
I think JP brought up something I’ve also noticed in this year’s Jeopardy clues. As I see it, the $2,000 clues are frequently easier than the $1600 (or sometimes even $1200) clues. I believe this trend started this season or possibly late last season. Is it just me or have others thought this? Congrats to Matt. His scope of knowledge is huge.
I think it would be hard to say for sure. Every game, there would be 12 opportunities for thinking “the bottom row clue was easier than a clue or two above it”. People’s knowledge can be very oddly distributed (if you have a favorite actor, or favorite author, or favorite genre of literature), so there’s bound to be bottom row clues that a person knows, while not know the clues above it, so it wouldn’t be surprising for that to maybe happen a couple times a game, even if they clues did get objectively harder going down, as could be measured by audience polls for example.
I think today’s fj responses were cases of quickly write down whatever comes to mind. Clearly “Washington” was a misread of the clue and “Mount Rushmore” was throw whatever sticks & hope it’s correct. Fortunately Matt realized in time that Mr. Rushmore had died by the time 1935 rolled around and was in no position to be invited to anything let alone be disliked. Quick thinking on Matt’s part and it paid off. Congratulations Matt. What a champion!
Mt. Rushmore was my knee-jerk response, but “Hoover Dam” came pretty quickly after a few seconds of pondering.
JP, funny. The same thing happened to me this morning. I went the Mount Rushmore route too before landing at the Hoover Dam.
I went with Rushmore and didn’t give it a 2nd thought. But I just looked it up, and Charles Rushmore died in 1931.
Now, Matt Amodio is tied with Austin Rogers & Seth Wilson for most games won on “Jeopardy!”, with 12 wins, but in terms of money, Matt is closer to Austin than to Seth, despite having past Seth’s total winnings $265,002 in Matt’s 7th game.
That second daily double was difficult for a third row clue, I thought. I would have guessed Massachusetts as well, not having any idea where Whitman was from, other than probably the Northeastern United States.
But that’s the way it goes. I thought the $2,000 clue was far easier.
Yeah, when Matt hesitated on that one, I just knew he was going to say Massachusetts. Most of the famous 19th century poets come from that state. lol
Interesting lol
On a poetry sidenote, Edgar Allan Poe lived in the Old Fordham section of the Bronx, New York for a year or so when his wife, Virginia, was terminally ill. It’s where she died.
Did you know the Youth Poet Laureate triple stumper?
Nope, JP, I’ve read some news about her and also knew she read one of her poems at Biden’s inauguration but I couldn’t recall her name.
Poets and poetry of the 19th century is what I always had the greatest Interest in. My knowledge of other centuries is shallow by comparison.
Yes, Poe Cottage, and the park that’s built around it is Poe Park. It’s quite the Bronx landmark and I didn’t live too far from there when I was growing up. My mom took me inside when I was little and it gave me the creeps, I still remember the big bronze raven statue but just have a vague memory of the rest of it.
Wow! What a great game today by the players! I was hoping James would win but I didn’t mind if Matt took over though!