The world of crosswords is quite beyond the rows and columns present in a crossword page. The knowledge you gain from a regular crossword will always be cherished by us, mostly because you gain that knowledge when your mind is in its most active form. With this said, lets dive into the sea of knowledge and fish out some of the most interesting facts about Crosswords that are not commonly known by the daily crossword solvers as well.
The Facts
Fact 1 – World Crossword Day
December 21st is celebrated as the World Crossword Puzzle Day. It was on this day that the world’s first ever crossword was published by Arthur Wayne in The New York World.
Fact 2 – Controversies and Crosswords
Sometime in early 1924, The New York Times came up with a statement mentioning crosswords as an utter waste of time. The statement made was,
The hatred for crosswords soon became an important topic in 1925 when people started discussing about crosswords as a simple trend that would not live long in the society. Adding to this, The Time Magazine apparently gave a timeframe, mentioning that people will get over crosswords by June.
But, looking at the wide number of crosswords being published each day and week, in the various publication houses, it definitely seems that crosswords are here to stay for a long long time.
Fact 3 – Ban on Crosswords
Crosswords were actually banned in Paris sometime during the great Second World War, as they were used to convey secret war messages.
Fact 4 – Largest Crossword
Being a crossword solver, all most of us do is fill-up the crossword puzzles and get back to our routine lives, without bothering to know about some of the most important facts of crosswords. For instance, do you know which the world’s biggest crossword is or how big the world’s biggest crossword really is?
Well, according to the Guinness book of Records, the world’s biggest crossword is ‘7 X ‘7 and includes 91,000 squares along with 28,000 clues. Interesting right?
Fact 5 – Board Crossword
In 1930, an architect named Alfred Mosher Butt, created the world’s first ever board crossword puzzle. The game became a favorite with the passing time and is currently played by kids and adults alike. It is called Scrabble.
Fact 6 – Crossword Tournament and Crossword Lovers
Despite the ban and famous magazines calling it an utter waste of time, crosswords became one of the most loved word games of all time. In fact, a special word was coined for crossword lovers who had the skill to create and solve crossword puzzles. The word coined is – Cruciverbalists.
Crossword Tournament
Did you know that like NBA or NFL, there also exists a crossword tournament? Well in fact, the Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is deemed to be the oldest crossword tournament in the world. It began in 1978.
Fact 7 – World’s Fastest Crossword solver
Yes, it is possible to solve a crossword puzzle in record time. Stanley Newman is the world’s fastest crossword solver and holds a record time of 2 minutes, 14 seconds.
If you’r looking to solve Stanley Newman clues, please check newsday crossword answers page.
Good Luck!
