history
Five Words That Frightened MI5
In the five weeks before D-Day, the Telegraph crossword printed the invasion's secret codenames one after another. Eighty years on, no file has ever surfaced.
The Crossword Capital Times
Est. 2026Thursday, 24 September 2026
history
The Man Who Made the First One
An Englishman from Liverpool, a Christmas edition to fill, and a diamond-shaped grid with a hole in the middle. How the crossword began.
The crossword was invented by a man from Liverpool, for an American newspaper, as filler for a Christmas edition. Its inventor found it a chore, and the paper's typographers resented setting it.
Arthur Wynne was born in Liverpool in June 1871, the son of a man who edited the Liverpool Mercury. He sailed for America in 1891, aged nineteen, and spent the next twenty years drifting through newspaper work in Pittsburgh, playing violin in the city's symphony orchestra on the side, before arriving at the New York World.
By 1913 he was running FUN, the World's Sunday jokes-and-puzzles supplement, and by December he needed something to fill the Christmas number. He reached back to what he had grown up with - the word squares that Victorian English magazines printed by the yard, which he had solved as a boy under his grandfather's instruction. Then he did the one thing nobody had done: he broke the square.
history
Britain Holds Out
A magazine in 1922, a Sunday paper in 1924, and The Times refusing until 1930 - and then printing its first crossword on the sports page.
Two Heads, One Grid
Doubles is not singles with a partner. A look at how 2v2 actually plays - shared clocks, fixed rotation, and a rating that belongs to the pair.
puzzles
Every Day, A New Grid
Six boards, two time zones and a choice you make before the first letter goes in. How the daily crosswords work.
The Post Room Is Open
Announcements and letters to the Editor - the Post Room is your direct line to Crossword Capital, on the website and in the app.
science
Does It Keep You Sharp?
We run a crossword site, so we have every commercial reason to tell you that puzzles protect your brain. Here's what the research actually shows - including the parts that don't suit us.
community
Two Ladders, Kept Apart
A rating that hides what it doesn't yet know, a division decided by your last ninety days, and a leaderboard that resets every midnight. How ranking works here.
culture
The Lockdown Boom
The pandemic surge in puzzles was real and record-breaking. It was also over within eighteen months - and the thing that rescued the numbers afterwards was not the pandemic at all.
One Name Left Standing
An open knockout every December. No seeding, no rating floor, no fixture list - press Play and you're drawn against whoever else is still alive.
culture
The Rise of Digital Crosswords
How crosswords made the leap from newsprint to smartphones - and what it means for the community.
What Makes a Great Crossword Clue?
From misdirection to wordplay - the anatomy of clues that make solvers smile.
history
The Setter's Art
Two people solved the same problem in opposite directions, and the crossword split into two games played on similar-looking grids.
announcement
Welcome to Crossword News
Introducing our new editorial section - your hub for crossword culture, tournaments, and community updates.
history
The Craze
In 1924 the crossword stopped being a puzzle and became a public emergency. Libraries rationed dictionaries, the Zoo begged for mercy, and The Times called it a national menace.
Why Britain Made It Harder
The usual explanation for the cryptic is parlour games and a classical education. Almost nobody with standing argues it in print - and the better-evidenced answer is a good deal less flattering.
history
The Twelve-Minute Test
In January 1942 twenty-five people sat down in Fleet Street to race a crossword for a hundred-pound wager. What happened next is the most famous story in crosswords - and the least documented.
A Blackout Pastime
The New York Times spent eighteen years calling the crossword a sinful waste. Eleven days after Pearl Harbor, it changed its mind.
history
The World Solves
Most of the world does not number its clues.
Two exiles invented the crossword twice in the same year. And a Chinese riddling tradition reached the cryptic's cardinal rule centuries early, in a script with no letters.
culture
The Last Thing Still Selling
Print is collapsing and the crossword is not.
In the one market that publishes category figures, puzzles were the only magazine sector to grow - and nobody can tell you how big the industry is.
Miscellany
Lost A gentleman's india rubber, much worn at one corner, somewhere between 14 Across and the Tuesday Jumbo. Sentimental value only.
Wanted A word of nine letters meaning “to abandon a puzzle with dignity”. The Editor is offering nothing for it and expects to receive a great deal.
Notice The compiler responsible for last Thursday's 7 Down has been spoken to.
For sale Complete run of this newspaper, 2026 to the present. One issue.