The Final Jeopardy question (10/18/2012) in the category “Place Names” was:

From 1953 until 1990 Chemnitz, Germany was named for this man.

New champ Meredith Lowmaster defeated a 7-day champ yesterday. She won $16,000 and is looking to stick around no doubt. So are these new players: Erin McCready, from Brooklyn, NY and  Glenn Felishman, from Seattle, WA.

Erin found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “The Tropic of Capricorn.” She was in second place with $3,600, $1,200 behind Glenn’s lead. She bet $800, thought it was the Arctic Zone and that was WRONG.

The Tropic of Capricorn separates two climatic zones, the tropical one and this zone that extends south to the Antarctic Circle.
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WHAT IS THE TEMPERATE ZONE?

Glenn finished in the lead with $4,800. Erin and Meredith were in a second place tie with $2,800 each.

Erin found the first Double Jeopardy Daily Double in “The Topic of Capricorns.” She now had the lead with $11,600, $2,400 more than Glenn in second place. She bet $1,000 and she was RIGHT.

Capricorn is a goat who scales mountains like this Capricorn who said in 1968, “I’ve been to the mountaintop.”
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WHO IS MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.?

Erin found the last Daily Double in “Early American Construction.” She had a runaway $15,400, $7,800 more than Glenn. She bet $2,000, leaving herself vulnerable to defeat if the worst happened, and it did. She took a guess with ringology and that was WRONG.

This 16-letter science of tree-ring dating tells us a structure in Dedham, Mass. is the USA’s oldest timber frame house.
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WHAT IS DENDROCHRONOLOGY?

Erin finished in the lead with $13,400. Glenn was next with $7,600 and Meredith was in third place with $6,000.

Only ONE of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHO IS KARL MARX?

“In the 19th century, as a highly industrialized city, Chemnitz became a center of the German labor movement, and this led to its renaming from 1953 through 1990 as Karl- Marx-Stadt, “Karl Marx town,” for the German founder of Communism.” (Placenames Of The World by Adrian Room)

Meredith wrote down Oppenheimer. She lost $4,000 and finished with $2,000.

Glenn got it right. He bet everything but a buck so he finished with $15,199.

Erin wrote down Wagner. She bet $1,801 so she wound up with $11,599.

So it is Glenn who will finish out the week with us as the new Jeopardy! champ.