- The last time the NCAA held its big basketball tournament (2019), workers spending company time picking and betting on brackets cost employers $4 billion in lost productivity. (USA Today)
- Elsewhere in basketball, when Air-Jordans were first introduced, they were against NBA dress code. Michael Jordan could totally afford—and paid—a fine every time he wore them on the court rather than play without them. Eventually, the NBA allowed the shoes on the court.
- To celebrate “Pi Day” on 3/14, perhaps you can impress your friends who speak Klingon by speaking Pi-lish. Some math nerds loved pi enough to invent a dialect based on it. The number of letters in each word match the corresponding digit of pi. This first word has three letters, the second has one letter, the third has four letters, and so on.
- Named for Mars, the god of war, March seems to live up to the name. Historically, the weather turned warm enough to resume any fighting that had paused for winter. Since the 1965 invasion of Vietnam, with the exception of the War in Afghanistan, almost all major U.S.-NATO led military operations have begun in March.
- Every month has an “ides.” The word just means “mid-point.” Perhaps Shakespeare also knew, in the Roman empire, March 15 was traditionally a day for settling debts. Seems the senators definitely did that.
- World travelers may be disappointed to visit the spot where Caesar was assassinated March 15, 44BC. Today it is the site of a no-kill cat sanctuary.
- The real St. Patrick wasn’t Irish. He was born in Britain around A.D. 390 to an aristocratic Christian family. He is also not officially a Catholic saint, as he was considered an extremely holy person for the age, but no pope ever officially canonized him.
- There are seven times more Irish-Americans than there are people living in Ireland.