March Madness

At the mention of those two words, all the nation’s basketball fans get really excited because of the college and NBA basketball playoffs. Over the years it has become more and more popular, much like the Super Bowl for football and the World Series for baseball. There are some sports critics who would say that the March Madness for college basketball (Sweet Sixteen) is more popular than the NBA basketball playoffs.

But there are other March items that are just as fascinating to people other than sports fans. “Beware the Ides of March,” the famous line in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Many folks don’t realize or never read or saw this play by the famous Bard, but Caesar was warned by a
soothsayer to beware this date in March as it would be his downfall. Lo and behold Caesar was stabbed to death by Senate members on this very date March 15th, just as the soothsayer predicted. Ides is “middle of” so, the 15th was the middle of March.

If you are an enemy in war, history tells us that throughout the ages, March has been a month of launching wars by many countries. It was a favorite month for the Romans to launch new offensives as it was the beginning of spring and warmer weather was at hand to
fight in.

So what else is great in March? Well, for those of Irish descent there is one of our favorite holidays, “St. Patrick’s Day”, where there’s green beer, Leprechauns, a pot of gold, and all good things to have fun with.

Let’s not forget that the original reason was the anniversary of the death of St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland. While he was never recognized by the Catholic Church as an actual Saint, it has become popular for his life’s work to bring Christianity to Ireland.

The Vernal Equinox happens in March where we have the first day where there is a 50/50 split in day and night; marking the first day we gradually get more daylight. It also marks the day to the end of Daylight Savings Time in the USA.

Pi Day for the math majors also falls into March, which makes a good excuse for the rest of us for regular old PIE! YUM!!