Ever humble, Ken Jennings, attributed his astounding win streak to buzzer skill. All the contestants had to pass difficult screening tests just to get on the game show, meaning they probably knew most of the answers. Separating out the winners from the losers was simply the quickness with which they could “buzz in” their answer. Jennings – the product of a Seoul, South Korean high school and bachelor’s degrees in English and Computer Science from University of Washington and BYU – was plenty smart, but perhaps more importantly, he was also well prepared.

On this day, November 30, in 2004, in his 75th consecutive appearance (minus the specials run in between) Ken Jennings winning streak finally ended. He had won collectively well over $2 million, a record for any game show.

Jenning’s instant celebritydom got him invited on every talk and game show that exists – according to him, completely with organizers preparing extra-difficult trivia questions for him. He appeared on an NPR, and on Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader, along with numerous radio cameos. He also played in a Jeopardy champions tournament, and the famed matchup against IBM’s Watson computer (which Jennings lost badly). And with all the trivia questions lobbed at him, he still more often than not usually gets them right.