Were the D-Day landings in World War II almost given away by a newspaper crossword puzzle?

Now that the first month of 2025 is rapidly falling behind us, an assessment of how things are going is in order.

I can only tell you how it’s going for me, but from my perspective, it’s going as well as can be expected.  Since I remain on “this side of the dirt,” as they say, I have very little to complain about.

And I certainly hope the same is true for you.

That being said, let’s get into this week’s collection of trivial nuggets hauled out of the vault.  You just might enjoy these!

Did you know …

… you might be allergic to the Moon?  Of course, there’s no real way for you to know, short of actually going to visit our natural satellite.  But at least one astronaut found out the hard way that he was allergic to the Moon.  Dr. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt (born 1935), a geologist, was one of the astronauts aboard Apollo 17 in 1972, and Schmitt reported that the dust on the Moon caused the inside of his nose to swell and gave him throat issues as well.  Schmitt, it turns out, has an allergy to Moon dust.  (Achoo!)

… the popularity of the 1960s Batman television series caused the other major networks to try a superhero farce?  While Batman was a ratings hit for ABC, the other series – Captain Nice on NBC and Mr. Terrific on CBS – were flops.  Captain Nice, starring William Daniels (born 1927) in the title role, lasted fifteen episodes, while Mr. Terrific with Stephen Strimpell (1937-2006) in the title role managed to eke out eighteen episodes.  Both shows debuted on January 9, 1967, and both aired their final episodes on August 28, 1967.  (And nobody remembers those other shows, do they?)

… rabbits are incredibly prolific?  Yeah, you already knew that.  But let me give you a little insight into just how prolific they can be.  In 1859, Thomas Austin (1815-1871), an Englishman who settled in Australia, imported 24 rabbits to his property Down Under.  Austin felt that the little bunnies would add some familiarity to the area, and heck – what harm can a few rabbits do, anyway?  Well, by 1920, the population of rabbits in Australia – who have no natural predators there – had soared to an estimated 10 billion, all of them confirmed to be descendants of the original 24 brought in by Austin.  (You do the math.  Thanks to Mason for the tip!)

… a huge coincidence almost gave away the World War II D-Day landings?  In May of 1944, the Daily Telegraph newspaper of Great Britain published a series of crossword puzzles which contained vital code names in the upcoming D-Day landing operations on the coast of France.  The words “Utah” and “Omaha” were in the puzzles, and were also two of the names given to the beaches in Normandy where the Allies would land.  Another word in one puzzle, “Mulberry,” was the name of the floating harbor to be towed across the English Channel, and yet another word, “Neptune,” was the code name for the naval support of the operation.  The most glaring possible security leak, however, was the use of the word “Overlord” in a puzzle.  “Overlord” was the code name for the entire D-Day operation.  An investigation by Britain’s MI-5 intelligence agency led to the home of Leonard Dawe (1889-1963), a teacher, who compiled those particular puzzles.  Dawe’s use of those five words in the puzzles turned out to be an astonishing coincidence, as he had no knowledge of any plans being made by the Allies.

… the human brain has enough memory capacity to store an awful lot of television programming?  The storage capacity of a human brain has been estimated at 2.5 petabytes, or 2.5 million gigabytes.  If your brain worked like a digital video recorder, it would be able to store about three million hours of TV program. (Why you would want to do that, of course, is beyond me.)

… some of the biggest names in the automotive industry are owned by another big name?  The Volkswagen Group owns the following automobile lines:  Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Audi, Ducati and Porsche, among others.  (Ah, what’s in a name, anyway?)

… five nations in the world do not have airports?  As you might expect, they are five of the smallest nations as well.  Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco, Liechtenstein and Andorra do not have airports.  Travelers have to go to the nearest bigger country to catch their plane.  (Come fly with me, indeed.)

… penguin sanctuaries in the Falkland Islands are a result of the 1982 war between Argentina and Great Britain?  During the conflict, land mines were placed along the coasts of some of the islands.  The penguins which live there are not heavy enough to trigger the mines, so they are able to live and breed safely there – no humans are going to bother them, not with the chance of being blown to smithereens.  Efforts are now being made to prevent any attempts to remove the mines, due to the success of the sanctuaries.  (Boy, those penguin sanctuaries are the bomb, aren’t they?)

… many children in the Roman Empire suffered from malnutrition?  The diet of ordinary Romans was mostly made up of starchy foods, not including fresh meat, fats, or many green vegetables.  (See, kids?  There’s a reason to eat healthy foods.  Don’t be a Roman.)

… most sports bars that show games on television do so with the sound off?  And the reason may surprise you – it’s not because the noise of the bar patrons would drown out the game sound anyway, but because restaurants and bars have to pay a fee to each professional sporting organization to be able to carry the games in their establishments.  Sound costs more.  (Sounds like a sound policy to me.)

Now … you know!