100 years of crosswords

A crossword puzzle is a game of words where the player is given a hint and the number of letters. The player then fills in a grid of boxes by finding the right words. 

The first crossword puzzle ran in The New York World on 21 December, 1913, 100 years ago. It was invented by Arthur Wynne. 

Arthur Wynne was born on June 22, 1871 in Liverpool, England. He immigrated to the United States at the age of nineteen. He first lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked both as a journalist and a musician. Wynne played violin in the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra before he moved to Cedar Grove, New Jersey and started working for  a newspaper called The New York World, whose editor asked him to invent a new game for the paper's Sunday entertainment section.