17. The New York Times wasn’t always the source of great crossword puzzles
Although there are several samples of word puzzles which preceded it, Arthur Wynne is generally credited with creating the first modern crossword puzzle, which appeared in the New York World on December 21, 1913. At first, copied in just a few newspapers, by the early 1920s crosswords had become a craze. Libraries reported that patrons there for legitimate study were blocked from reference books by crossword solvers. The very first issue of The New Yorker commented “…the crossword puzzle bids fair to become a fad with New Yorkers”. In a time when New York had several newspapers competing daily with each other, they all began printing their own. All that is but one.
“This is not a game at all, and it can hardly be called a sport”, sneered The New York Times over the latest craze. It also referred to the hobby as a “sinful waste”. In 1925, the Times continued to scorn crosswords, saying that they were already a dying fad, and in 1929 noted, “The cross-word puzzle, it seems, has gone the way of all fads”. Not until 1942 did the Times surrender and begin publishing crosswords on its pages. By the end of the 20th century, the Times puzzle was published in newspapers across the country, and it had become one of the most popular crossword puzzles in the English-speaking world.