The diamond-shaped puzzle, known as a "Word-Cross" (pictured at right), was published in the "Fun" section of the Sunday paper, the New York World. It was written by Arthur Wynne, a British journalist.
On a snowy evening in the early 1900s, a newspaper editor at the New York World was hunched over his desk trying to think of something special for the Christmas issue.
Remembering the small word squares he’d solved as a young Brit in Liverpool, he drew a diamond-shaped grid with numbered squares and numbered clues. It contained 32 words, and his simple instruction read:
“Fill in the small squares with words which agree with the following definitions.”
The puzzle appeared Dec. 21, 1913, and what 42-year-old Arthur Wynne had created was the first crossword puzzle.
Here's New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz with more:
Scary jack-o-lantern faces, spooky cats and haunted houses are so tired. Forget the mini serrated knives and avoid the gooey, stringy mess — this Halloween, turn your pumpkins into word search puzzles! All you need is a pumpkin, chalkboard paint, letter stickers and some chalk.
The [Empire State Building] LED tower light show, created by world-famous lighting design artist Marc Brickman, was designed and choreographed to the music curated by Usher for the fireworks.
On April 1, 1957, BBC television viewers were treated to a short documentary about the spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland. The film showed spaghetti trees laden with ripe pasta, and Swiss farmers harvesting long strands and laying them out to dry "in the warm alpine sun."
It's believed that this story was the first use of television for an April Fool's prank.
Wait — so there's no such thing as a spaghetti tree?!
This morning, the White House released a special video message from the President. Watch: youtu.be/5byDhm-E-YE
— The White House (@whitehouse) April 1, 2013
...one of the least annoying April Fools' Day pranks posted online today.
Sixty years ago, the book "Charlotte's Web" first appeared in print. This children's classic is often seen as a story of a spider and a pig. But when E.B. White recorded a narration of the book, he said something different:
"This is a story of the barn. I wrote it for children, and to amuse myself."
If you like Necco wafers, the original candy wafer — yeah that's a category that really took off — there's no need to watch this video. You're going to get screwed no matter what. Same goes if you like those nasty little orange and black candies. Save yourself some time, don't go trick-or-treating, just eat random crap you find on the floor.
Trick-or-Treat cookies have a surprise inside — either a treat, like mini chocolate candies, or a trick, such as small sugar ants.
(Although if you really want to be evil, you could fill them with something terribly inedible and/or poisonous. MWAHAHAHA)
These cute Halloween cookies are the creation of Megan at Not Martha.
The secret is to stack three cookies, with the middle layer hollowed out, and "glue" them all together with icing.
Nothing says Halloween fun like Spooky Ghost Pizza, with mozzarella and black olive ghosts, and spiders made from green olives and rosemary (which can easily be picked off and discarded, because green olives - ew!).
Today, the most dangerous thing about lunch is deciding whether to heat up a frozen meal, which could easily explode all over the microwave, or to risk eating out, where unhealthy options prevail. Back in 1932, for a group of steel workers in New York City, lunch involved attempting to eat a sandwich without falling off a beam situated 800-feet above ground.
Eighty years ago, the iconic photo "Lunch Atop a Skyscraper" was taken on 69th floor of the RCA Building in Rockefeller Center (later renamed the GE Building). Ever since the photograph was published anonymously in the New York Herald Tribune on October 2, 1932, the identities of the 11 men at lunch have remained a mystery. Archivists are now certain, however, that the photo was actually a staged publicity stunt to help promote the skyscraper.
A new documentary film “Men at Lunch” explores the story behind the iconic photograph.
On September 19, 1982 at 11:44 am, Professor Scott Fahlman of Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University sent the following email to a colleague.
And thus, the emoticon (a portmanteau of the words emotion + icon) was born.
"This was a little bit of silliness that I tossed into a discussion about physics," Fahlman said. "It was ten minutes of my life. I expected my note might amuse a few of my friends, and that would be the end of it." Boy was he wrong. =(
Ahoy, mateys! September 12, 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of Talk Like a Pirate Day. But if talkin' like a pirate ain't yer thing, ye landlubbers should try drawin' one.
I think we can all collectively agree that we'd rather shoot our eyes out than sit through any part of this sequel.
Years after realizing his childhood dream of getting a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, 16-year-old Ralphie (Braeden Lemasters) sets his bespectacled sights on a gift of the four-wheeled variety in this belated sequel to Bob Clark's beloved 1983 classic "A Christmas Story." As the snow begins to fall and the carolers start to sing, Ralphie dreams of waking up on Christmas morning to find the keys to a 1938 Hupmobile Skyline Convertible dangling from the tree, and embracing a whole new world of freedom as he cruises the streets of Hohman, Indiana in style. "Home Alone" alumni Daniel Stern takes over for the late Darren McGavin as The Old Man, with Stacey Travis, David Buehrle, David W. Thompson, and Valin Shinyei sounding out the supporting cast as Mrs. Parker, Schwartz, Flick, and Randy respectively.
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December 21, 2013
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