Notes

The World Newspaper Puzzle
On the 21st of December 1913, Arthur Wynne published the world's first crossword puzzle in the "Fun" section of Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. It was a diagram made up of an equilateral grid with 31 empty squares that readers were asked to fill out using words that shared letters. It was a basic idea, but it revolutionized newspapers.


makephotopuzzle was a huge hit. It was a huge success in a matter of minutes. We are hard-pressed to find a newspaper that doesn't contain some sort of puzzle. There are newspapers that print puzzles that are cryptic or acrostic such as word jumbles, word puzzles as well as word searches. These puzzles are a great way to increase mental acuity, increase vocabulary, and enhance thinking abilities in classrooms and in the workplace.



Although they were popular, the early people who were critical of the puzzles were skeptical. The New York Times sneered at the newest fad calling them "a known form of madness." Claims that they were good for mental exercise and served as an opportunity to improve one's vocabulary by expanding words after repeated exposure were dismissed.


In the United States, however, it was the time of a puzzle-related fever that took over the entire country. By the mid-1920s, puzzles were an integral part of most weekly and daily newspapers. Many comics also featured puzzles.


Americans were hooked on "mental exercises" in the late 1920s. They were a welcome distraction from the serious world news of the day. The interest grew to the point that there were many who couldn't even be without solving a puzzle.


As the 1930s progressed and the thirties wore on, some of these wild newspaper readers took the issue to extremes. Crosswords led to divorces in many reports. Brides and grooms crying featured in headlines. Even the formidable New York Times couldn't resist the enthralling appeals to blame the puzzles for unintentional behavior, such as the case of a man who didn't catch his train to work because he was playing a crossword in the train coach!


Through time, crosswords continued to evolve and evolve over the passage of time. While traditional grids and cryptic puzzles remain popular, more complicated techniques have been introduced, including the use of word puzzles and Acrostics. In 1994, a puzzling puzzle in the British newspaper The Observer put British intelligence offices on the alert. Some of the clues were code names for beaches to be utilized by Allied forces during Operation Overlord on D-Day. These included GOLD and SWORD two of the beachheads; MULBERRY, which was an acrostic to describe the harbors floating in the water; and OVERLORD, one of the clues for the actual landing.

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