# The History Guy's interesting video on crossword history

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-guys-interesting-video-on-crossword-history/1011951>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [December 21, 2024, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-guys-interesting-video-on-crossword-history/1011951 "2024-12-21T00:08:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\
**Post date:** [December 21, 2024, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-guys-interesting-video-on-crossword-history/1011951/1 "2024-12-21T00:08:41Z")

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He really outdid himself in this [video](https://youtu.be/kGzMr3QSl9k) on the early days of “word crosses”.

Esp. ironic was the NY Times crusade against them. Throw in rants from the pulpit, “won’t somebody think of the children” hysteria and more.

I think that one thing that made it such a craze was that larger cities had so many papers with each doing a crossword that the supply was larger than in the 80s, for example, when consolidation had reduced the number of papers (and increased their prices).

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**Author:** ![epbrown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@epbrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-guys-interesting-video-on-crossword-history/1011951/2 "2024-12-22T17:08:17Z")

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It’s sort of despairing, knowing humanity can work up a tizzy about _anything._