Modern Era
The current era of puzzle contests, in which the contests are conducted almost entirely by mail, began in the early 1970s. A promoter of packaged vacation tours called American Holiday Association (AHA) decided to use a puzzle contest to publicize its holiday packages. The puzzle contest proved so popular, that eventually AHA dropped its vacation business and became exclusively a puzzle contest promoter.
The best-known of the AHA contests was their BINGO format word grid. In the first round the player had to fill in 5 words into the 5x5 grid, meshing with the word BINGO that had already been filled into the left column. Since there were only 2 words in the word list starting with B, only 2 words with I, etc., no real skill was required. The second round was similar, with BINGO filled in the diagonal. Again, there were only 2 words starting with B, only 2 words with I in the second position, and so forth.
At their peak, around 1985-90, the AHA contests drew about 100,000 players in each contest, with a new contest starting every week.
Read more about this topic: Puzzle Contest
Famous quotes containing the words modern and/or era:
“Anne: He hit me, Jack. My own brother, he hit me.
Jack: Your brother’s an old-fashioned man, he believes in a sister’s honor. Me, I’m Modern Man, the 20th-century type. I run.”
—Robert Rossen (1908–1966)
“The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)