0606-19 NY Times Crossword 6 Jun 19, Thursday

Constructed by: Fred Piscop
Edited by: Will Shortz

Today’s Reveal Answer: D-Day

In honor of D-Day, today’s themed answers each start with the name of a beach stormed by Allied forces on this day 75 years ago. Lest we forget …

  • 59D Its beaches begin five answers in this puzzle : D-DAY
  • 17A Direct-to-customer beef retailer : OMAHA STEAKS
  • 40A Calaverite or sylvanite : GOLD ORE
  • 66A Performer with a weapon : SWORD DANCER
  • 11D NASA spacecraft orbiting Jupiter : JUNO PROBE
  • 36D The Aggies of the N.C.A.A. : UTAH STATE

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 11m 27s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Coffee bar offering : MOCHA

Mocha is a port city in Yemen on the Red Sea and was once the principal port for the capital city of Sana’a. Mocha was the major marketplace in the world for coffee until the 1600s, and gave its name to the Mocha coffee bean, which in turn gave its name to the mocha brown color, and to the flavor of coffee infused with chocolate.

14 Navajo dwelling made of logs and mud : HOGAN

The traditional dwellings built by the Navajo people are known as hogans. “Hogan” is the anglicization of a Navajo word meaning “the home place”.

15 ___ Bell (Emily Brontë pen name) : ELLIS

“Wuthering Heights” is the only novel written by Emily Brontë, and one that she published using the pen name Ellis Bell. “Wuthering Heights” was published in December of 1847, a date chosen to take advantage of the wave of success enjoyed by Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” that had been published just two months earlier.

17 Direct-to-customer beef retailer : OMAHA STEAKS

Omaha Steaks is a company that sells meat and related products directly to end customers. Omaha steaks are shipped directly to purchasers in coolers packed with ice. The company was founded back in 1917 as a single butcher shop in Omaha.

19 1952 and 1994 Olympics locale: Abbr. : NOR

Lillehammer, Norway hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1994. The ‘94 Winter Games were the first to be held two years after the Summer Olympics, and so took place only two years after the ‘92 Games, held in Albertville, France.

The 1952 Winter Olympic Games took place in Oslo, Norway. One of the firsts at the 1952 games was the first use of a purpose-built athletes’ village. The 1952 Games also marked the return of Japan and Germany to the Olympic family after being excluded from the 1948 games following WWII.

31 Spirited horse : ARAB

The Arab (also “Arabian”) breed of horse takes its name from its original home, the Arabian Peninsula. Like any animal that humans have over-bred, the horse falls prey to genetic diseases, some of which are fatal and some of which require the horse to be euthanized.

34 Upscale hotel amenity : SAUNA

As my Finnish-American wife will tell you, “sauna” is a Finnish word, and is pronounced more correctly as “sow-nah” (with “sow” as in the female pig).

39 Demolition aid : TNT

“TNT” is an abbreviation for “trinitrotoluene”. Trinitrotoluene was first produced in 1863 by the German chemist Joseph Wilbrand, who developed it for use as a yellow dye. TNT is relatively difficult to detonate so it was on the market as a dye for some years before its more explosive properties were discovered.

43 Memory unit : BIT

In the world of computing, a bit is the basic unit of information. It has a value of 0 or 1. A “byte” is a small collection of “bits” (usually 8), the number of bits needed to uniquely identify a character of text. The prefix mega- stands for 10 to the power of 6, so a megabyte (meg) is 1,000,000 bytes. The prefix giga- means 10 to the power of 9, and so a gigabyte (gig) is 1,000,000,000 bytes. Well, those are the SI definitions of megabyte and gigabyte. The purists still use 2 to the power of 20 for a megabyte (i.e. 1,048,576), and 2 to the power of 30 for a gigabyte.

46 City NE of Manchester : LEEDS

I went to school for a while not far from Leeds in West Yorkshire in the north of England. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Leeds was a major center for the production and trading of wool, and then with the onset of mechanization it became a natural hub for manufacture of textiles. These days Leeds is noted as a shopping destination and so has been dubbed “the Knightsbridge of the North”.

Manchester is the second most populous city in the UK, and is located in the northwest of England. Manchester grew in size dramatically during the Industrial Revolution. Home to a thriving textile industry, Manchester is often referred to as the the world’s first industrialized city.

48 Hawaiian entree, for short : MAHI

“Mahi-mahi” is the Hawaiian name for the dolphinfish, which is also called the dorado. The mahi-mahi is an ugly looking creature if ever I saw one …

49 Ones playing the numbers? : DEEJAYS

The world’s first radio disc jockey (DJ) was one Ray Newby of Stockton, California who made his debut broadcast in 1909, would you believe? When he was 16 years old and a student, Newby started to play his records on a primitive radio located in the Herrold College of Engineering and Wireless in San Jose. The records played back then were mostly recordings of Enrico Caruso.

52 Big brand with an oval logo : STP

STP is a brand name of automotive lubricants and additives. The name “STP” is an initialism standing for “Scientifically Treated Petroleum”.

54 Ticket datum : ROW

Our word “data” (singular “datum”) comes from the Latin “datum” meaning “given”. The idea is that data are “things given”.

55 Something you might write an article on : SPEC

Something that is created on spec is done so without having a specific buyer or consumer in mind. Many crosswords are constructed on spec, and then submitted to the likes of the “New York Times” or “Los Angeles Times” in the hope of publication.

65 Subject of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine : DNA

Francis Crick and James Watson discovered that DNA had a double-helix, chain-like structure, and published their results in Cambridge in 1953. To this day the discovery is mired in controversy, as some crucial results collected by fellow researcher Rosalind Franklin were used without her permission or even knowledge. In 1962, along with molecular biologist Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

68 Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame” has one : ACT

“Endgame” is a 1957, one-act play written by Irishman Samuel Beckett. Beckett actually wrote “Endgame” in French (naming it “Fin de Partie”), and translated it into English himself.

72 Name on a “Citizen Kane” poster : ORSON

1941’s “Citizen Kane” was the first film made by Orson Welles, and is considered by many to be the finest movie ever made. It’s a remarkable achievement by Wells, as he played the lead and also produced and directed. Despite all the accolades for “Citizen Kane” over the decades, the movie was far from a commercial success in its early run and actually lost money at the box office.

Down

4 Hot and dry : SAHARAN

The name “Sahara” means “greatest desert” in Arabic. The Sahara is just that, a great desert covering almost 4 million square miles of Northern Africa. That’s almost the size of the United States.

6 Underground networks : METROS

The Paris Métro is the busiest underground transportation system in western Europe. The network carries about 4.5 million passengers a day, which is about the same ridership as the New York City Subway. The system took its name from the company that originally operated it, namely “La Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris”, which was shorted to “Métro”. The term “Metro” was then adopted for similar systems in cities all over the world.

7 Cry repeated at the start of the 1987 dance hit “Hot Hot Hot” : OLE!

“Hot Hot Hot” is a song written and first recorded in 1982 by Arrow, a singer-songwriter from the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. “Hot Hot Hot” became a dance floor hit for Arrow, and then really took off when it was covered in 1987 by Buster Poindexter. Ole ole …

11 NASA spacecraft orbiting Jupiter : JUNO PROBE

Juno is a space probe launched by NASA in 2011 that has been orbiting the planet Jupiter since 2016.

13 ___ ball : NERF

Nerf is soft material used in a whole series of toys designed for “safe” play indoors. The Nerf product is used to make darts, balls and ammunition for toy guns. “NERF” is an acronym, standing for Non-Expanding Recreational Foam.

22 Good soil : LOAM

Loam is soil made up of sand, silt and clay in the ratio of about 40-40-20. Relative to other soil types, loam is is usually rich in nutrients and moisture, drains well and is easy to till.

25 Labrador retriever or Alaskan malamute, notably : SHEDDER

The Labrador (Lab) breed of dog has been around at least since 1814, and the chocolate Labrador appeared over a century later in the 1930s. The name “Labrador Retriever” is simply a reference to the breed’s origin and behavior. Labs originally “retrieved” from the “Labrador Sea”.

The Alaskan Malamute was bred as a working dog, and in particular to pull sleds. The breed takes its name from the Mahlemut tribe of Inuit people. The Alaskan Malamute was designated as Alaska’s official state dog in 2010.

32 Like much of Chile : ARID

The nation of Chile has a very distinctive shape. It is a narrow strip that runs up the west coast of South America. The average width of the country is only a little over 100 miles, and yet its length is about 2,700 miles. Chile is touted as the longest country in the world, although I am not so sure what that means exactly. I mean, Russia extends about 4,800 miles from east-to west, so maybe “longest” implies long in the north-south direction?

35 Visitor to King Mongkut : ANNA

“Anna and the King of Siam” is a semi-biographical novel written by Margaret Landon and first published in 1944. The book tells the largely true story of Anna Leonowens who spent five years in Siam teaching English to the children and wives of King Mongkut. The novel was adapted as a 1946 movie of the same name starring Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison. Then followed a 1951 stage musical titled “The King and I”. The musical was written as a vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence, who played Anna. Rex Harrison was asked to play the King, but he turned it down and Yul Brynner was cast instead. A movie version of the stage musical was released in 1956, famously starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr.

42 Abstract Expressionist Krasner : LEE

Lee Krasner was an abstract expressionist painter from Brooklyn, New York. Krasner was married to fellow abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock, and the couple were known to have had enormous influence on each other’s work. Krasner is one of a short list of female artists to have had retrospective shows in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

50 River to the Dead Sea : JORDAN

The Jordan River forms the border between the nations of Israel and Jordan, and flows into the Dead Sea. According to the Christian Bible, Jesus was baptised in the Jordan by John the Baptist. The country of Jordan takes its name from the river.

The Middle East’s Dead Sea lies more than 1,400 feet below sea level, making it the lowest point on the Earth’s landmass. It is also one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, with a salt content that is almost ten times that of most oceans.

56 Typesetters’ measures : PICAS

A pica is a unit of measure used in typography. One pica is equivalent to 1/6 of an inch. Also, each pica unit contains 12 points.

57 Javelin, e.g. : EVENT

There are usually four throwing events in a track and field competition:

  • hammer
  • discus
  • shot put
  • javelin

58 Mints with Retsyn : CERTS

Certs were the first breath mints to be marketed nationally in the US, hitting the shelves in 1956. A Cert is called a mint, but it isn’t really as it contains no mint oil and instead has its famous ingredient named “Retsyn”. Retsyn is a mixture of copper gluconate (giving the green flecks), partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil (not healthy!) and flavoring (maybe mint?).

59 Its beaches begin five answers in this puzzle : D-DAY

The Normandy landings on D-Day in 1944 took place along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The worst fighting by far took place on Omaha Beach, a sector assigned to the US Army that was transported by elements of the US Navy and the Royal Navy.

62 Some retina cells : RODS

The retina is the tissue that lines the inside of the eye, and is the tissue that is light-sensitive. There are (mainly) two types of cell in the retina that are sensitive to light, one called rods and the other cones. Rods are cells that best function in very dim light and only provide black-and-white vision. Cones on the other hand function in brighter light and can perceive color.

67 Feature on a Spanish map : RIO

In Spanish, a “lago” (lake) is usually fed by a “rio” (river).

Complete List of Clues/Answers

Across

1 Unrefined : CRASS
6 Coffee bar offering : MOCHA
11 Painter van Eyck : JAN
14 Navajo dwelling made of logs and mud : HOGAN
15 ___ Bell (Emily Brontë pen name) : ELLIS
16 Word with single or fair : … USE
17 Direct-to-customer beef retailer : OMAHA STEAKS
19 1952 and 1994 Olympics locale: Abbr. : NOR
20 Cover over, as a wall : REPAPER
21 Remove, as a name tag : PEEL OFF
23 Busy beaver : DOER
24 Rejections : NOS
26 Go one better than : TOP
27 Place to buy paint : ART SHOP
31 Spirited horse : ARAB
34 Upscale hotel amenity : SAUNA
37 Now and for always : EVERMORE
39 Demolition aid : TNT
40 Calaverite or sylvanite : GOLD ORE
43 Memory unit : BIT
44 Coated, in a way : ENAMELED
46 City NE of Manchester : LEEDS
48 Hawaiian entree, for short : MAHI
49 Ones playing the numbers? : DEEJAYS
52 Big brand with an oval logo : STP
54 Ticket datum : ROW
55 Something you might write an article on : SPEC
59 More daft : DOTTIER
63 Field a kickoff : RECEIVE
65 Subject of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine : DNA
66 Performer with a weapon : SWORD DANCER
68 Samuel Beckett’s “Endgame” has one : ACT
69 Mailing category for reduced postage : MEDIA
70 Very little : SCANT
71 “___-haw!” : YEE
72 Name on a “Citizen Kane” poster : ORSON
73 Things to run or pass : TESTS

Down

1 Set of keys, maybe : CHORD
2 Beau : ROMEO
3 Slack-jawed : AGAPE
4 Hot and dry : SAHARAN
5 Lose one’s cool : SNAP
6 Underground networks : METROS
7 Cry repeated at the start of the 1987 dance hit “Hot Hot Hot” : OLE!
8 Keep time with the beat, maybe : CLAP
9 Jack up : HIKE
10 Land, building or machine : ASSET
11 NASA spacecraft orbiting Jupiter : JUNO PROBE
12 Beginning : AS OF
13 ___ ball : NERF
18 Text message status : SENT
22 Good soil : LOAM
25 Labrador retriever or Alaskan malamute, notably : SHEDDER
28 Lose one’s cool : RAGE
29 In ___ (embryonic) : OVO
30 Individually : PER
32 Like much of Chile : ARID
33 Agrees to “make things interesting” : BETS
34 Goblet feature : STEM
35 Visitor to King Mongkut : ANNA
36 The Aggies of the N.C.A.A. : UTAH STATE
38 Bank : RELY
41 Discontinued : OLD
42 Abstract Expressionist Krasner : LEE
45 Helpful thing to have on hand? : MITT
47 Perfumer’s extract : ESSENCE
50 River to the Dead Sea : JORDAN
51 Going “Wow, wow, wow!” : AWED
53 ___ clam (mollusk found off the coast of California) : PISMO
56 Typesetters’ measures : PICAS
57 Javelin, e.g. : EVENT
58 Mints with Retsyn : CERTS
59 Its beaches begin five answers in this puzzle : D-DAY
60 “There was a time …” : ONCE …
61 Still life subject : EWER
62 Some retina cells : RODS
64 Closing credits heading : CAST
67 Feature on a Spanish map : RIO