The first published crossword puzzle appeared in an American paper, but was created by a British writer. On December 21, 1913, Liverpool native Arthur Wynns’ puzzle was printed in the New York World Sunday paper.
These puzzles often leave players looking for a word matching a description and fitting a certain number of letters. For instance: an 8 letter word for a fragrant flower is: marigold. This is a notable crossword answer because of its length; most crossword answers are five letters or less.
Other interesting crossword facts: vowels occur more often in a crossword puzzle than in normal use of the English language and over 50 million Americans regularly work on crossword puzzles.