Across
- 9. 1959 improvisational classic widely considered the best selling jazz record ever — a cool album with a moody name.
- 10. 1777 engagement whose twin battles persuaded France (and later Spain and Holland) to join the American Revolution. America’s French Kiss of sorts.
- 11. Intermediate extrusive rock listed alongside rhyolite, basalt and obsidian as a common volcanic stone — the middle child of volcanic families.
- 13. Nationalized by Nasser in 1956, triggering an international crisis.
- 14. Stacked barrel arrangement beloved by clay shooters with 24-to-32-inch barrels and open chokes.
- 15. Goddess of wisdom, war and crafts who sprang fully armed from Zeus’s head and often appears with an owl and aegis.
- 17. 2023 film that became the highest grossing movie of the year, earning about $1.44 billion worldwide and setting a record for female directors.
- 18. California city where the UN Charter was finalized by representatives of 50 nations.
- 19. Reed worker who might spend half a gig counting rests and the other half taking them.
- 22. UN body created by the Charter with five privileged seats and ten rotating ones added in 1963 — a chamber of five perennials and ten musical chairs.
- 23. Small group originally including Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin that became the Soviet Union’s supreme policy making body until being superseded by a larger Presidium in 1952.
- 27. Flavor creating browning process triggered when proteins and sugars meet high heat — and no ducks are harmed.
- 29. Founding document drafted by delegates from 50 nations in San Francisco in 1945 — the paperwork that birthed the U.N.
- 32. Landlocked “red hero” capital that holds the record for coldest national seat of government.
- 33. 2019 Cannes Palme d’Or champ that treats “class divide” as a home-invasion genre. No exterminator needed.
- 35. Saintly sounding rift that runs roughly eight hundred miles and even lent its name to a movie.
- 41. Album that made Beyoncé the first Black woman this century to win ‘yeehaw’ album of the year. Nothing to do with bovines, kids or presidents.
- 45. French novelist who penned Les Misérables and openly supported abolitionist John Brown — Victor of French letters who admired Brown.
- 46. Only NFL team to retire a jersey number for “The 12”
- 48. Legendary pharaoh credited with unifying Upper and Lower Egypt around 3150 BCE and founding Memphis — not the one in Tennessee.
- 49. 2005 mass protests in Beirut after Hariri’s assassination that helped bring about a Syrian troop withdrawal. Think “local turning tree.”
- 53. French novel whose 1862 translation was read by Union soldiers and censored by Confederate publishers.
- 54. Monk credited with inventing the Armenian alphabet in 406 A.D.
- 55. City that hosted the Summer Olympics in 1964 and again in 2021
Down
- 1. Union general who delivered General Order No. 3 in Galveston, proclaiming that all slaves were free; his announcement birthed a holiday.
- 2. Shula’s Opus…the only one ever accomplished in the NFL.
- 3. The ‘Autumn Wind’ is a pirate.
- 4. Fantasy movie filmed in Kiwi-land that completed a clean sweep of its 11 nominations.
- 5. 5,642 meter Caucasus peak that surpasses Mont Blanc as Europe’s highest mountain.
- 6. 1648 peace whose legacy is every IR syllabus’s favorite “state sovereignty” origin story
- 7. Historic village built around an 1826 axe company that turned rural Canton, Connecticut, into an early mass production hub.
- 8. Katharine Lee Bates patriotic hymn, often invoked as a would-be national anthem alternative
- 12. Parliament in Jerusalem, where coalition math is a full-time job.
- 13. Portmanteau for the billions in consumer spending sparked by Taylor Swift’s Eras tour — GDP bump when a pop star hits town.
- 16. Anonymous 1776 Philly “paperback” that talked colonists out of staying loyal to a crown
- 20. Abolitionist championed by Victor Hugo and referenced in the censored sections of his novel — Harper’s Ferry raider eulogized in song.
- 21. River whose 500 channel delta is Europe’s largest and empties into the world’s largest inland sea.
- 24. Psychologist whose obedience experiments showed that about two thirds of participants would deliver maximum shocks. Just push the button if you’re told, baby.
- 25. The Fab Four’s AI finished track that snagged a Grammy decades later.
- 26. Lava’s underground alter ego.
- 28. State of mental discomfort described by Festinger when actions don’t align with beliefs — that uneasy feeling when deeds betray convictions.
- 30. Back of the envelope finance guideline: divide this multiple of six and nine by a percentage rate to estimate doubling time.
- 31. 1215 document whose clause 39 protects free men from imprisonment without due process.
- 34. High altitude Andean seat of “peace” that isn’t Bolivia’s constitutional capital.
- 36. Post 1979 Iranian title held by only two men that sits above the president — not to be confused with a pizza order.
- 37. Prophecy fearing patriarch of the Greek pantheon who infamously took “eat your kids” literally.
- 38. Hip hop diss track that became only the second single ever to win both song and record of the year.
- 39. Overhead set gear that dips in for dialogue and (ideally) stays out of frame
- 40. “Lady Soul” who became the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
- 42. Habit of calling supporting evidence “data” and everything else “fake news”
- 43. Head of lighting on a film set (not the one at the golf course)
- 44. Holiday marking the day Union troops freed enslaved African Americans in Texas, two and a half years after Lincoln’s proclamation. Doesn’t stop it from sounding stupid.
- 47. Surname of a whisper pop phenom whose middle name is Pirate and whose songs about bad guys and birds swept major awards.
- 50. Virginia village whose name became shorthand for “it’s over” in 1865
- 51. Iroquoian-born field game whose stick’s name is French for a bishop’s staff. Early “fields” could be miles long.
- 52. 1880 novel subtitled “A Tale of the Christ” (later a 1959 11 Oscar epic) whose hero drives a quadriga with equine names borrowed from stars like Altair, Aldebaran, Antares and Rigel.