Answer: BLOOPER
At first, it is just a normal crossword puzzle. Some of the clues don't seem to have the right answers. In fact, they did have the right answer at one point in time. At some point in the past, the answer in the crossword ceased to be the answer to the clue. For example, 10 Across's clue "New York baseball team" has the answer "Dodgers" which has not been a New York baseball team since 1957. All such answers are shown below in the completed table. Arranging all such clues in chronological order from when they stopped being true (for "Dodgers" in the described example, it would be 1957) and reading down the first letters gives the clue phrase: FLUBBEDMOVIESCENE, cluing the answer: BLOOPER.
Year of errata | Answer | Reason for no longer being true |
Around 496 | FORUMMAGNUM | Rome dissolved |
1755 | LISBON | Destroyed in Great Lisbon Earthquake |
1881 | UNCLETOMSCABIN | Passed by Hazel Kirke |
1916 | BOSTONTECH | Moved to Cambridge (also no longer called Boston Tech) |
1925 | BOHR | Rutherford-Bohr model replaced by quantum model of Born, Heisenberg, and Jordan |
1955 | EINSTEIN | Died |
1957 | DODGERS | Moved to Los Angeles |
Dec 1957 | MARINER | Supplanted by Mars Program (Mars 2 probe) |
May 15, 1972 | OKINAWA | Returned to Japan |
1973 | VIETCONG | Vietnam War ends |
Around 1979 | IND | Passed by south Africa |
1983 | ELO | Left group |
1989 | STENNIS | Succeeded by Robert Byrd |
1992 | CARSON | Replaced by Jay Leno |
1993 | ERI | Passed by either Andorra or Monaco |
1998 | NBC | Rights transferred to FOX |
Aug 18, 2014 | ERICCANTOR | Stepped down after losing Republican Primary |