I’m a huge lover of crossword puzzles. I became addicted from a very early age, 1950, when I sat watching my father curse and swear at the kitchen table when he couldn’t find a word he needed. Throughout my life I continued my interest and it has culminated in the current game Words with Friends, an online game. My better-half and I have been crazy for that game for more than 13 years with no end in sight. I’ve played hundreds of players and thousands of games and it’s been great fun and frustrating as crossword puzzles tend to be. Just recently I decided to do a little investigation into the history of crosswords. If you are a crossword addict then you might find this interesting. Here’s what I’ve discovered.
The game word-cross first appeared in December of 1913. Three weeks after the first puzzle appeared in the New York World newspaper, a type setter accidently reversed the name from “word-cross” to “cross word”. That newspaper folded in 1931 but by then dozens of newspapers constructed and ran their own weekly puzzles. By the early 1920’s, crosswords were popular in Great Britain, Germany, France, and Russia. In 1924, two New York entrepreneurs saw an opportunity. The story is told that Richard Simon’s aunt asked her nephew to find her a book of crossword puzzles. He couldn’t find one, so he started a company in partnership with Max Schuster and published the first crossword puzzle book. Americans then went crossword crazy. Simon & Schuster reprinted the book and sold more than a quarter-million copies in the first year, and their upstart company is now one of the largest publishing houses in the world.
My thanks goes out to the Hasbro Company and Zynga for keeping the interest in crosswords alive and well in both board games and a huge on-line presence.
What are two things that most people think about every day. My best guess would be death and sex. With that thought in mind I decided to supply you all with a list of global statistics about many things but mainly death. Many of these numbers are current up to and including today. Some of the information is shocking and some is simply unbelievable.
Global Death Rate
Statisticians have calculated the "mortality rate" for the world to be roughly .883 percent. This means that 1 out of every 113 people in the world died last year.
World Population:
has reached 7 billion on October 31, 2011
is projected to reach 8 billion by 2024
has doubled in 40 years from 1959 (3 billion) to 1999 (6 billion)
is currently growing at a rate of around 1.13 % per year
growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at 2%
growth rate is currently declining and is projected to continue to decline in the coming years
average annual population change is currently estimated at over 80 million
world population will reach 10 billion persons in the year 2056
As of Today
"This year" = from January 1 (00:00) up to now
"Today" = from the beginning of the current day up to now
"net population growth" = births minus deaths
145,641 Births today
60,991 Deaths today
22,888,972 Births this year
9,585,278 Deaths this year
84,650 Net population growth today
13,303,694 Net population growth this year
Technology
37,472,003 Computers produced this year
2,092,893 Cellular phones sold today
$ 74,559,389 Money spent on videogames today
3,316,866,142 Internet users in the world today
82,805,119,987 Emails sent today
229,774,292 Tweets sent today
1,711,619,570 Google searches this year
Health
1,621,694,128 Overweight people in the world people in the world
1,731,966,562 Water consumed this year (million L)
134,660 Deaths caused by water related diseases this year
661,570,850 People with no access to a safe drinking water source
Natural Resources
Quick Facts: Barrel = 42 Gallons = 159 Liters
31,340,762 Oil pumped today (barrels)
1,158,647,387,197 Oil left (barrels)
13,793 Days to the end of oil (~38 years)
Miscellaneous Deaths
1,215,470 Deaths of children under 5 this year
54,974 Deaths of mothers during birth this year
268,816 Deaths caused by HIV/AIDS this year
1,313,313 Deaths caused by cancer this year
156,851 Deaths caused by malaria this year
Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking
5,659,200,051 Cigarettes smoked this year
799,386 Deaths caused by smoking this year
399,945 Deaths caused by alcohol this year
171,477 Suicides this year
215,859 Road traffic accident fatalities this year
$ 63,971,038,394 Money spent on illegal drugs this year
How’s that for a quick and dirty summary of the human race. Chaos, death, destruction, confusion, and life goes just keeps rolling along.
