Quick Recap & Today’s Final Jeopardy – April 27, 2016

Today’s contestants:

Joe Indiviglia, a real estate marketer from San Diego, CA

Ellen Plitt, an emergency room nurse from St. Louis, MO

Buzzy Cohen, a music executive from Los Angeles, CA (2-day total: $50,002)

Curious as to how I come up with my %age chances of winning? Check out my methodology!

Scores going into Final Jeopardy:
Buzzy $13,800
Ellen $9,600
Joe $4,000

Final Jeopardy! category: AMERICAN HISTORY

Final Jeopardy! clue: A stimulus to the courageous, the $25,000 Orteig Prize offer of 1919 resulted in his success 8 years later

[spoiler title=’Click/Tap Here for Correct Response’]Who is Charles Lindbergh? (Ellen had no answer, Buzzy went for Scott)[/spoiler]

Zerg’s Fallacy strikes again! When you are not within 75% of the leader’s score, betting up to pass the leader by $1 is simply a foolhardy wager, and it leads to losses like this one today for Ellen.

I guess you could say “Lucky Buzzy”? (A take, obviously, on “Lucky Lindy”)

Meanwhile, from charleslindbergh.com:

Raymond Orteig emigrated to New York from France in 1912. He worked as a bus boy and café manager and eventually acquired two New York Hotels which were popular with French airmen assigned to duty in the United States during the Great War

In 1919 Raymond Orteig offered a prize of $25,000 for the first nonstop aircraft flight between New York and Paris. By the mid 1920’s, airplanes had finally developed enough to make such a flight possible. The first aviators to go for the prize paid with their lives. Others were still willing to take the chance and Roosevelt Field became their headquarters. Several famous aviators arrived at the field and the public followed their plans with intense interest. Then in May, 1927, a new plane quietly flew in from the west. An unknown, young, airmail pilot, Charles Lindbergh, had arrived.

At 7.52 AM, May 20th, 1927 a small single-engine aircraft took off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island. 33 1/2 hours later, on May 21st, the same aircraft landed at Le Bourget Airport, Paris. At the controls of the Ryan monoplace named Spirit of St Louis, a 25-year-old mail pilot, Captain Charles Lindbergh. On August 31st, 1927 the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) ratified Lindbergh’s performance as the new World Record for non-stop flight.

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