1/12/25 - I Think Knot 🪢

🏁 Solve –> I Think Knot by Jeffrey Martinovic

23A | H.S. club with student "diplomats"

MODEL UN

The first Model United Nations assembly took place at Oxford University in 1921, before the concept made its away across the pond to Harvard in 1923. (Of course, simulations prior to the conclusion of WWII were modeled after the UN's predecssor, the League of Nations.)

An estimated 400,000 students across the globe take part in Model UN conferences each year. Even Ban Ki-moon participated before serving as the real UN's Secretary-General from 2007-2016.

35A | Nicholas II was the last one

TSAR

When he abdicated the throne during a 1917 uprising known as the "February Revolution," Nicholas II became the last in a line of Russian tsars dating back to Ivan IV (aka "Ivan the Terrible") in 1547.

A little over one year later, in July 1918, Bolshevik forces executed Nicholas, his wife and their five children – including 17-year-old Anastasia, despite persistent rumors (and a Disney movie) purporting otherwise. It wasn't until the 1990s, however, that their bodies were excavated from an abandoned mineshaft and positively identified.

In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church designated the entire family "passion bearers," a level of sainthood conferred on those who are not explicitly killed for their faith, but whom nevertheless face death in a pious manner.

👉 BONUS BIT: The infamous mystic healer Grigori Rasputin was frequently engaged by Tsar Nicholas II to treat his son Alexei, who suffered from the genetic disease hemophilia.

48A | Stick in a bathroom cabinet

QTIP

Kleenex. Post-It. Band-Aid. ChapStick. Velcro. Frisbee. Koozie. Q-Tip.

Our vocabularies are filled with words that – although they are technically trademarked brand names – have become so ubiquitous as to refer to any common item in a certain product category.

For the trademark holders, this particular sort of popularity is undesirable. (You want everyone to know your name, but not to the extent that they'll hand you any facial tissue when you ask for a Kleenex.)

In fact, in some extreme cases a brand name becomes so synonymous with a general item that its trademark is revoked. This outcome is termed "genericide." Victims of their own success include escalator, linoleum, aspirin, cellophane, dry ice, and trampoline.

Q-Tips have thus far avoided this fate, but really, when was the last time you heard anyone say "stick with a cotton swab on the end of it"?

(Oh, and by the way, the "Q" stands for "quality." Really.)

63A | R&B singer Williams

DENIECE

Twice in her career, the soprano vocals of R&B/Soul/Gospel/Pop singer Deniece Williams reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: the first time for "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" (a 1978 duet with Johnny Mathis) and the second six years later with "Let's Hear It For The Boy," a single released from the soundtrack for the 1984 Kevin Bacon movie Footloose.

111A | ___ 101, 508-meter skyscraper that was once the world's tallest

TAIPEI

As its name indicates, Taipei 101 is a 101-story structure located in Taiwan's capital city. Designed to resemble a bamboo shoot, the multi-purpose building is home to a shopping mall, the Taiwan stock exchanges, lots of offices, two observation decks (indoor and outdoor) and – for a period of time – the world's fastest elevators.

Upon opening on December 31, 2004, Taipei 101 supplanted the twin 452-meter Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in height. It, in turn, was surpassed in 2010 by the UAE's Burj Khalifa (which still reigns above all other human-made structures at a whopping 828 meters tall). Currently, Taipei 101 ranks #11 on the list of the world's tallest completed buildings.

16D | He was named Athlete of the Century by the I.O.C.

PELE

In 1999, the International Olympic Committee unveiled their list of the top five athletes of the preceding 100 years:

1. Pelé
2. Muhammad Ali
3. Carl Lewis
4. Michael Jordan
5. Mark Spitz

In addition to being the only non-American on the list of finalists, the mononymous Brazilian soccer star is also the only one of the five to have never actually participated in the Olympics (due to a pre-1988 rule barring professional athletes from taking part in the games).

30D | French wine designation

CRU

Cru is a system for classifying wine that encompasses not just the grapes, but the conditions of the entire vineyard – from climate and altitude, all the way down to the soil itself.

In this regard, wines rated as "Grand Cru" are the highest-ranked, followed by "Premier Cru" and then "Village Wine."

33D | Big letters in the pharmaceutical industry

CVS

Founded in 1963 as "Consumer Value Stores," CVS is a retail & pharmacy chain known for the length of their receipts.

Soon shortened to just CVS, the company also swapped the brand's original shield logo and now has its big red letters affixed to the front of over 9,300 locations across the United States and Puerto Rico (that's a whopping 1,000 more stores than its closest competitor, Walgreens).

Chances are you've seen one recently – per the company's own data, approx. 85% of Americans live within 5 miles of a CVS.

77D | Ecological portmanteau since 1905

SMOG

1905? Au contraire! Henry Meyrick's Santa Cruz and Monterey Illustrated Hand-Book (a reference guide for two California cities published in 1880) contains the following description:

The morning fogs ... [are] really not fog at all, but cloud or pure white mist, warmer and much less wetting than a "Scotch Mist," and differing entirely from the true British fog, facetiously spelled "smog" because always colored and strongly impregnated with smoke, a mixture as unwholesome as it is unpleasant.

Notably, in this context it does not appear Meyrick believes he is coining a new word for a combination of fog + smoke, but rather is simply referencing a term already in circulation.

In any event (as Meyrick alludes to), the ur-smog, as it were, was the thick, noxious air famously known to hover above London – the same polluted atmosphere that clean air activist Dr. Harold Antoine Des Voeux referred to as "smog" in a paper he delivered before the Public Health Congress of England's capital in 1905.

108D | ____ cava

VENA

In vertebrates, blood is circulated throughout the body via a closed system of blood vessels (arteries, veins, capillaries). When blood leaves the heart it is loaded with oxygen and nutrients, but upon returning it consists mostly of carbon dioxide.

The vena cava (Latin for "hollow vein") is the vein that carries this deoxygenated blood back to the right atrium so that it can be replenished with oxygen from the lungs.

Humans have two vena cava – the shorter "superior" (i.e. "upper/above") and the longer "inferior" (i.e. "lower/below") – so named for their position in relation to the heart.

⚠️ FYI: Arteries are the channels that transport blood away from the heart; veins funnel it back.

109D | English prep school with a shade of blue named after it

ETON

Named after the color donned by the school's rowing team starting in the 1820s, "Eton blue" – a hue that technically sits in between blue and green – is now immortalized as Pantone 7464.

Hmm, that answer sounds familiar 🤔

18A | Treasure-seeking woodcutter of folklore

ALI BABA [see The Sunday Glossword - 1/5/2025]

72D| Dog whose name was Terry before her most famous film role

TOTO [see The Sunday Glossword - 12/2/2024]

106D | Baltic capital city

RIGA [see The Sunday Glossword - 1/5/2025]