Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings pulled off his record-setting 30th appearance on the syndicated game show Tuesday night by winning (again) and bringing his total to more than $1 million.
The Utah software engineer, 30, added $32,000 to his take, bringing his winnings to $1,004,960 – only $145,000 behind the show's all-time champ, Brad Rutter, whose May 2002 winnings were $1.15 million.
But no one has had a winning streak like Jennings, who will be back for his 31st appearance Wednesday.
In his month-long run, Jennings has provided more than 1,000 correct questions, though he did miss Tuesday's "Final Jeopardy" question, about when the size of the type changed in The New York Times. (The paper first used 96-point type for headlines marking historical events. Jennings answered that this happened in 1996 and 2001. The correct response: 1969, when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, and 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned.)
A Seattle native who grew up in South Korea (his father works for an international law firm in Seoul) Jennings watched Jeopardy on the U.S. Armed Forces TV network and thought to himself, "Hey, maybe you could go on Jeopardy. You're not half bad at it."
Jennings expects to invest his winnings for his wife, Mindy, and their 1 1/2-year-old son, Dylan. There will be a splurge or two, he also says, probably on a trip to Europe.
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