Arthur Wynne, who invented the crossword puzzle, was born in Liverpool, England in 1862. There are other Arthurs (Wynne), but this man was also a writer and he worked for the New York World Newspaper in 1913. His job was to keep the fun pages, fun. In 1913, sales were down and the editor asked Arthur to come up with something new for the fun pages, in hopes of increasing newspaper sales. When Arthur came through with the "Word-Cross" puzzle, it was an instant success and eventually became the "Cross-Word" puzzle and, later, the "Crossword," without the hyphen.
Much can be learned about Arthur Wynne, the originator of the Crossword Puzzle, by researching on the internet. I hope you enjoy your search. Its a very interesting American success story.