“Inside Jeopardy Live on Tour” brought Ken Jennings and friends to the Windy City on Friday, September 12. Jeopardy! fans gathered in the historic Chicago Theater for a live taping of the “Inside Jeopardy!” podcast, hosted by Michael Davies and Sarah Foss. Special guest appearances by champion Juveria Zaheer and Celebrity Jeopardy! champion W. Kamau Bell rounded out the first half of the night. Then Ken Jennings took the stage to run an interactive Jeopardy! game with the entire audience playing (your WorldsFairChicago1892.com hosts among them). While many clues featured Chicago knowledge, the Final Jeopardy category was a delightful surprise:
The clue in the category of “The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair” was:
We suspect that many in the audience knew the correct response to “The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair introduced this word for a central avenue of exhibits & amusements.”
Just a quibble—the name (spoiler alert!) was given to this strip of land by Frederick Law Olmsted well before the Columbian Exposition. With regard the second part of the mile-long thoroughfare’s appellation, a Chicago Tribune reporter in 1873 commented that the “French name, by the by, our Western people are not likely to adopt as readily as they did the word boulevard.” Oh, contraire! The name—well, the non-French first part at least—quickly became synonymous with entertainment districts because of the 1893 World’s Fair. Knowing about this Columbian Exposition legacy can help win some gameshow cash.
