Interesting Facts About the Crossword Puzzle

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The first crossword puzzle was published in the New York World's Sunday supplement on December 21, 1913. It was created by Arthur Wynne, who was a British-born journalist. It was originally called a "word-cross puzzle". In 1924, Simon & Schuster published the first puzzle book titled The Cross Word Puzzle Book. There were 300,000 copies sold. The largest crossword ever created was published in Japan and had 28,000 clues. The lovers of the crossword puzzle are called "cruciverbalists". The highest number of vowels in a crossword puzzle is 21. The original crosswords were printed mostly in children's puzzle books. The first crossword puzzles to appear in the New York Times was in 1942 in response to Pearl Harbor because the publisher felt people needed a distraction from reality. The picture is from Pinterest.es