Possible Clues:

• Like many a 12-Down
• Central sheen in exotic light source
• Inventors of the compass and movable type
• Houdini's act two recurrence — lethal ties loosened
• More than a billion people found in machine search
• Cuisine with chow mein
• Unsettled, since he is from a far country
• Like gunpowder and the seismometer, by origin
• Event now associated with elements of 10, 24, 28, 29, 3, 4, 8, 23 and four other solutions
• Shanghai language