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.
2. In 1690 this English philosopher wrote, “Wherever law ends tyranny begins.”
Category: Political Quotes
Clue: He is known as the “Father of Liberalism.”
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
18. These “make fine birds.”
Category: Proverbs
Clue: This material covers the bodies of all birds and assists in flight.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
24. Corky saw this movie 768 times.
Category: Anagrams
Clue: Sylvester Stallone is best known for this film franchise.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
39. Breed of a chicken named for a famous American landing site.
Category: Word Origins
Clue: This where the Pilgrims first landed.
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.
41. 1988, starring Sigourney Weaver.
Category: Cinema Zoo
Clue: Similar to Monkeys in the Rain.
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.
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.
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.
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.
46. The Banff Springs snail: this country
Category: Animal Planet
Clue: The most northern country in North America.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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