📜 Another week of our TWIH puzzles, short for This Week in History: a series of crosswords, one for each of the 52 weeks of the year, each built from real events that happened that week. This one covers November 29 to December 5: sixteen moments from the death of Mozart in 1791 to the first text message ever sent, with the Mary Celeste, the founding of the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto’s famous Fog Bowl in between. Every clue starts with its date, most carry a bonus hint in grey italics, and a word bank sits under the clues if you get stuck. Print it, or play online right in your browser. The answer key sits at the bottom — fold it backward along the dotted line before you start. Missed last week? Try November 22–28, or see every week in the series.
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You don’t need to be a history buff to finish this one. Every clue hands you a date and a short story, and the word bank lists all sixteen answers, so the real puzzle is matching each story to its word and fitting it into the grid. Here’s a good way in:
New to crosswords? Our complete guide to solving crosswords covers clue types and fill strategy from the ground up.
The TWIH series splits the calendar into 52 weeks that land on the same dates every year, so this puzzle is worth pulling out every year as November turns into December. The This Week in History page shows the whole calendar and every week that’s ready so far.
November 30 is a crowded day in this grid: Mark Twain, L.M. Montgomery and Winston Churchill were all born on it, and Montgomery and Churchill were born on the very same day in 1874. Canada gets the birth of Anne of Green Gables’ author, the founding of the Montreal Canadiens and the only Grey Cup ever stopped by fog, and Nova Scotia gets a share of one of the sea’s great mysteries: the Mary Celeste was built at Spencer’s Island, and the ship that found her drifting, the Dei Gratia, was Nova Scotian too. Around the world, the week runs from Mozart’s last days in Vienna to Pong, the Chunnel and the first text message.
Every date and detail in the clues was checked before it went into the grid. A few needed care. The Mary Celeste was found on December 4 by land time, but by the sea time ships kept then it was already December 5, so you’ll see both dates. Pong is often said to have been released at Andy Capp’s Tavern, but that was an early test machine in the summer; Atari announced the game on November 29. And the Channel Tunnel didn’t open in 1990: December 1 was the day the service tunnel broke through, and the first trains ran in 1994.
Did you know? Computer folks know TWAIN as the standard that lets scanners talk to software. It isn’t really an acronym. The name comes from Kipling’s line “…and never the twain shall meet,” because before the standard, getting a scanner and a computer to work together felt that hopeless. The name was written in capitals to make it stand out, so people assumed it stood for something. The made-up meaning that stuck was “Technology Without An Interesting Name.”
Every clue was checked against the sources below before it went into the grid. If you spot something we got wrong, use the Report an error link below and we’ll fix it.
Missed last week? This Week in History: November 22–28 runs from Blackbeard’s last battle to Toy Story. Like your crosswords packed with facts? Try the General Knowledge Crossword, or for something with no word bank at all, the Hard crossword It’s Coming Down.
Spot a mistake in this puzzle? Report an error and we’ll fix it. Here’s how we check our puzzles.
Puzzle Pack: Word Play & Trivia · Series: This Week in History