Was Sudoku first published before the crossword puzzle?
No. The first sudoku (first published 1979) came 66 years after the first crossword puzzle (first published 1913).
The duel opens first in a practice round of ten; practice never changes your daily streak.
Why it surprises
Sudoku has a Japanese name and an air of ancient number lore, while the crossword feels like a fixture of the twentieth-century newspaper, so it is easy to guess that sudoku came first. It did not. The first crossword, then called a word-cross, was printed by the newspaper New York World on 21 December 1913. The puzzle we now call sudoku appeared 66 years later, in 1979, in American puzzle magazines under the name Number Place. Its Japanese name came only afterwards, when the puzzle was taken up in Japan. Number grids and word squares have older ancestors, and puzzle lovers can argue about those, but as published puzzles of their modern kind, the crossword is older than sudoku by more than six decades.
Sources for this explanation
- Penny Publications / Penny Dell Puzzles: pennydellpuzzles.com, checked 25 October 2026
- Library of Congress: blogs.loc.gov, checked 25 October 2026
Where the numbers come from
Each value was checked against two independent sources, quoted on its page. Details: Sudoku and Crossword puzzle.
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