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90’s Trivia Questions
Jeopardy! contestants have the brains it takes to get on the show. But the trivia questions can prove challenging even for the smartest of the show’s participants. These 50 extremely difficult Jeopardy! questions are infamously known as “triple stumpers.” Triple stumpers are questions that not one of the three players in the episode can answer. Read along and test your knowledge against some of the show’s hardest questions.
1. Appropriately, this type of public building in Grand Rapids is named after astronaut Roger B. Chaffee?
Category: Michigan Odds & Ends
Clue: This building is referred to as a “sky theater” and gives viewers an up close look at the night sky, planets, and stars.
Correct Answer: A planetarium
2. In 1690 this English philosopher wrote, “Wherever law ends tyranny begins.”
Category: Political Quotes
Clue: He is known as the “Father of Liberalism.”
Correct Answer: John Locke
3. After “The Civil War” aired on PBS, this Memphis Civil War historian became a celebrity.
Category: The Civil War
Clue: He was a Mississippi native who William Faulkner claimed “showed promise if he’ll just stop trying to write Faulkner.”
Correct Answer: Shelby Foote
4. He was the last Whig to hold the office & went on to become president when Zachary Taylor died.
Category: Vice Presidents
Clue: He was the 13th president of the U.S. and the last President that was neither Democratic or Republican parties.
Correct Answer: Millard Filmore
5. This ex-prime minister is the wife of businessman Asif Ali Zardari
Category: Pot Luck
Clue: She served as the 11th and 13th prime minister of Pakistan in the later 1980s and early 1990s.
Correct Answer: Benazir Bhutto
6. There’s no oxygen below 510 ft. in the center of this sea the Russians call Chemoye More.
Category: Bodies of Water
Clue: It’s known as the Mediterranean Sea of the Atlantic Ocean.
Correct Answer: The Black Sea
7. On “Superman” Gary Merrill played this caped crusader.
Category: Radio Heroes
Clue: To summon this superhero, a distress signal lights up the sky with an iconic symbol.
Correct Answer: Batman
8. According to the book of Psalms, these objects “have ears, but they hear not.”
Category: All Ears
Clue: The Ten Commandments advises against the worship of these.
Correct Answer: Idols
9. First planted in Rio in the 1770s, by 1830 it was Brazil’s top export.
Category: Brazil
Clue: This bean transforms into what is the most popular hot drink in the world.
Correct Answer: Coffee
10. The Spanish title of this Vicente Blasco Ibanez novel about bullfighting is “Sangre y Arena.”
Category: World Literature
Clue: One of these substances is made of plasma and cells while the other is made up of materials from disintegrated rocks.
Correct Answer: Blood and Sand
11. In the late 1800s this furniture wood was described as “fumed” when it was stained with ammonia fumes.
Category: Furniture
Clue: This type of tree is known as the “King of the Forest.”
Correct Answer: Oak
12. During WWI, its regiment de marche was France’s most decorated military unit.
Category: World History
Clue: It was created in 1831 to help incorporate foreign nationals into the country’s army.
Correct Answer: The French Foreign Legion
13. “If they asked me, I could” do this “about the way you walk and whisper and look.”
Category: Broadway Lyrics
Clue: 81% of the American population wants to do this, but only 15% actually does it in their lifetime.
Correct Answer: I could write a book
14. Liquid plastic used to make “Creepy Crawlers” in the 1960s.
Category: Toys & Games
Clue: Mattel created this toy, but the fad died out in 1978.
Correct Answer: Plasti-Goop
15. Mary Martin became closely identified with this tune after singing it in Cole Porter’s “Leave it to Me.”
Category: “My” Songs
Clue: This phrase has also become a popular staple on baby onesies.
Correct Answer: “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”
16. When founded on May 15, 1862, it had only a commissioner, 4 clerks, 1 gardener & his aides.
Category: The Cabinet
Clue: This department is responsible for executing laws related to farming, food, and forestry.
Correct Answer: Department of Agriculture
17. She once used the male pen name Tom A. Janowitz, which is similar to her real name.
Category: Pen Names
Clue: Change the “O” in Tom and add the middle initial on the end.
Correct Answer: Tama Janowitz
18. These “make fine birds.”
Category: Proverbs
Clue: This material covers the bodies of all birds and assists in flight.
Correct Answer: Fine feathers
19. Number of points for each team in a contest, it comes from Old Norse for 20 & also means 20.
Category: Word Origins
Clue: When someone returns to watch a sports game after stepping away for a moment, they always ask this question first.
Correct Answer: The score
20. They’re a pair of passageways divided by a bony septum, leading to the vestibule.
Category: Anatomy
Clue: This prominent facial structure plays a role in the sense of smell.
Correct Answer: The nostrils
21. On February 10 he was confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Category: 1971
Clue: His son would eventually become the U.S. president in 2001.
Correct Answer: Bush
22. Matthew Flinders completed the first circumnavigation of this continent in 1803.
Category: World History
Clue: This continent is commonly referred to as the “Land Down Under.”
Correct Answer: Australia
23. In this 1984 film, Lance Guest uses his video game skills to fight an interstellar war.
Category: “Last” Films
Clue: This film is one of the film industry’s earliest projects to use CGI.
Correct Answer: The Last Starfighter
24. Corky saw this movie 768 times.
Category: Anagrams
Clue: Sylvester Stallone is best known for this film franchise.
Correct Answer: Rocky
25. The Great Mogul Diamond was once owned by this Mogul emperor who built the Taj Mahal.
Category: Diamonds
Clue: He lived in the 1600s and was the fifth Mogul Emperor.
Correct Answer: Shah Jahan
26. An attack on American sailors in Valparaiso brought the U.S. to the brink of war with this country.
Category: 1891
Clue: This South American country is known as the “Country of Poets.”
Correct Answer: Chile
27. Edward Kemeys designed the lions that guard the entrance to the Art Institute of this city.
Category: Design
Clue: This “windy city” is the heart of Illinois.
Correct Answer: Chicago
28. She went to medical school at Johns Hopkins before hosting a literary group & hanging out with Hemingway.
Category: Shakespearean Name Roundup
Clue: She wrote the bestselling memoir called The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.
Correct Answer: Gertrude Stein
29. I pledge you my everlasting this, from Latin for “faith.”
Category: Words of Love
Clue: This faithfulness is given to a spouse or partner in a practice of loyalty.
Correct Answer: Fidelity
30. The molecular structure of salt allows it to dissolve in water; the pepper will only disperse, creating this type of mixture, from the Latin for “hang up.”
Category: Science & Nature
Clue: A bridge of this type is supported by large cables that run between towers.
Correct Answer: A suspension
31. To absorb nutrients, or a collection of published material.
Category: “D” Talks
Clue: Mothers advise their children not to swim until their lunch has fully done this.
Correct Answer: Digest
32. The ceremonial mace kept in the House of Reps. is a copy of the one destroyed when the Brits invaded D.C. in this year.
Category: Historic Objects
Clue: The War of 1812 continued on to this year.
Correct Answer: 1814.
33. This Omani capital is dominated by the sultan’s palace & 2 Portuguese forts built in the 16th century.
Category: Middle Eastern Capitals
Clue: It sits on the Gulf of Oman and is a major port city.
Correct Answer: Muscat
34. In the book “Explorers,” it precedes “Gama.”
Category: 2- or 12-Letter Words
Clue: Much to the dismay of mothers, this is typically a baby’s first word.
Correct Answer: Da
35. Asher Durand’s “Summer Afternoon” is on a stamp celebrating the school of artists named for this New York River.
Category: Stamps
Clue: This river provides trade routes to Canada and the Great Lakes region.
Correct Answer: The Hudson River
36. This sweet stuff, the country’s longtime main crop & export, is grown on plantations called rocas.
Category: Let’s Visit Sao Tome & Principe
Clue: It’s formed from a bean and can be turned into a butter.
Correct Answer: Cocoa
37. Apollo 12’s crew collected parts from a lunar probe with this “cartographic” name that had been there for 2 years.
Category: The Apollo Missions
Clue: Also the name of the profession where workers survey land.
Correct Answer: Surveyor
38. In the 80s this duo had a string of hits beginning with “Lost in Love” & “All Out of Love.”
Category: Soft Rock
Clue: There’s a short supply of this in space.
Correct Answer: Air Supply
39. Breed of a chicken named for a famous American landing site.
Category: Word Origins
Clue: This where the Pilgrims first landed.
Correct Answer: Plymouth Rock
40. John Adams wrote this “makes a greater difference between man and man than nature has made between man and brute.”
Category: American Quotations
Clue: High school graduates go to college to get one of these.
Correct Answer: Education
41. 1988, starring Sigourney Weaver.
Category: Cinema Zoo
Clue: Similar to Monkeys in the Rain.
Correct Answer: Gorillas in the Mist
42. This funereal 3-word term for the toughest bracket of a sports tournament like the World Cup.
Category: New to the OED
Clue: A type of group that is unusually competitive in a multi-stage tournament.
Correct Answer: Group of death
43. He returned to Lake Victoria without Burton & mapped the region before returning home in 1863.
Category: Sojourner
Clue: He was a Captain and an officer in the British Indian Army.
Correct Answer: John Speke
44. In 1917, a cookware salesman began giving customers soapy steel-wool pads, which he later sold under this name.
Category: Business History
Clue: Morse code is most commonly used to send this type of distress signal.
Correct Answer: S.O.S. pads
45. A con man claims to be the son of Sidney Poitier in this play that opened on Broadway in 1990.
Category: Nights on Broadway
Clue: Was also turned into a film starring Will Smith, Stockard Channing, and Donald Sutherland.
Correct Answer: Six Degrees of Separation
46. The Banff Springs snail: this country
Category: Animal Planet
Clue: The most northern country in North America.
Correct Answer: Canada
47. Lying sick in bed, Adam gives his son Caleb his blessing by saying the Hebrew word “timshel.”
Category: The End of the Book
Clue: A cardinal direction plus the name of the first garden in the Bible.
Correct Answer: East of Eden
48. British pride added a helmet from this site were an undisturbed 7th-century Anglo-Saxon burial ship was excavated.
Category: The British Museum’s History of the World in 100 Objects
Clue: The site of early medieval cemeteries that date back to the 6th and 7th centuries.
Correct Answer: Sutton Hoo
49. Titian portrayed Mary ascending to heaven, also known as this Christian doctrine.
Category: The Art of Religion
Clue: People also make “these” when they accept something as truth without proof.
Correct Answer: The assumption
50. The 105-year-old Looff Carousel in this Washington city’s Riverfront Park is housed in a building remaining from Expo ’74.
Category: Parks
Clue: It’s named after the county it’s located in and is home to the largest urban waterfall.
Correct Answer: Spokane
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