Amazon BeyondTheIDes.com Category:  History Publisher: Strategic Media Books ISBN-10:  1939521351 Type: Non-Fiction Pages: 278 Copyright: March 1, 2015 ISBN-13: 9781939521354 Price: $18.95 (eBook) What do Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan all have in common? HINT: Read this book to learn how they share the same fateful phenomenon that afflicted the Titanic, the Deepwater Horizon, Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Facility, the Exxon Valdez and so many more. WARNING: Reading This Book May Freak You Out! What do Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan all have in common? HINT: They share the same fateful phenomenon that afflicted the Titanic, the Deepwater Horizon, Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Facility, the Exxon Valdez and so many more. Vincenzo Camuccini, "Morte di Cesare", 1798,From John Belushi to John Candy, Sharon Tate to Watergate, countless ill-fated pop stars, politicians and personalities also suffered tragically from this eerie link. Give up?"Beyond the Ides - Why March is the Unluckiest Month of All," By Craig McGuire They all fell victim to sudden, sick twists of epic bad luck during the third month of the year, sending them spinning off into catastrophic disaster — proof that March is, and always has been, the unluckiest month of all. Just ask Julius Caesar. From assassinations that changed the course of human history and bizarre celebrity deaths to uncanny disasters that should have been avoided, “Beyondthe Ides” is chock full of March mayhem, murders and massive nuclear meltdowns. Remember the Alamo? How about Pearl Harbor? The mass killings at Jamestown and My Lai? The list doesn’t stop there. From the Boston Massacre to the meltdown at Three Mile Island, the New York Draft Riots to Rodney King and the days Los Angeles burned, “Beyond the Ides” breathes new life into the ancient superstitions surrounding the month that comes roaring in like a lion. But don’t take my word for it. Read this book and be among the growing number who know to beware the ides of March. Excerpt Reader Advisory WARNING! This book will change the way you look at life forever. Relax. It only lasts 31 days of the year. My premise is simple. March is the unluckiest month of all. Go on. Laugh. Roll your eyes. Still, you will walk away with my pebble in your shoe. From this book forth, when bad luck befalls in the mean season, you will glance at the calendar, remember what you read here, and have your own revelation. Much as I did long ago. It was the last day of the longest month of 1999. My run-down one-bedroom in Gravesend, Brooklyn, lightly reeked of mildew from days of grey rains seeping through cracks in old warped windows. Miserable, I sulked on my faded calico couch nursing facial bee stings. Tossing out the trash the day before, I knocked over the pail. Bending down to set the can right, I disturbed a hive, sending a squadron of yellow jackets swarming into the holes in my face. Stumbling, flailing, gagging, jamming fingers into my mouth and nose, the soft-flesh membrane stings brought tears to my eyes. Strange, I later thought, for bees to be out on a cold rainy Brooklyn March morning. The next day watching television in that musty apartment, a startling news report flashed across the screen. A villain viciously assaulted Harlequin heartthrob Fabio, striking him in the face no less. As the bees were stabbing my face the day before, a bird slammed into Fabio’s fabulous smile, mid-ride, aboard the new Apollo's Chariot roller coaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. (As of this writing, the video has pulled 431,545 views on YouTube. Trust me, it never gets old.) It starts out pleasantly enough. On hand to christen the coaster, Fabio is bulging out of his light blue cotton button-down, Olympian locks gently ruffling in the breeze. The harness barely restrains his rippling physique, strapped into the front car beside three bubbly beauties bedecked in Roman togas. Our cameraman is not actually on the crowded coaster, so the clip fades out as Fabio’s chiseled chin ascends sunward astride the steel horse he rides. Then it happened. According to an eyewitness, moments after the coaster sped out of cameraview, the diabolical duck struck Fabio’s face with massive force, in the midst of a 210-foot descent screaming at upwards of 73 mph. Fade-in to the next frame. The smile has fled Fabio’s blood-flecked face, giving us his best what-the-hell-just-happened-topoor-Fabio look. As the coaster slowly crawls into the station, he barely, bravely holds back the tears. The date was March 30, 1999. The ride reopened 15 minutes later, with park officials reassuring media that the incident was an “unpredictable freak accident that has never occurred before.” Those words struck me with the force of a bird to the face as I fingered the wounds of my own “unpredictable freak accident that has never occurred before.” I made the connection. Over the years, my more bizarre mishaps and misadventures had one thing in common. They happened in March. March is the unluckiest month of all. March is endless bad luck for me, from broken noses to stubbed toes, back aches to ankle breaks, sprained knees, lost keys, lost jobs, lost money, lost girlfriends, and really, really bad haircuts. Can you feel me, Vinko? You know Vinko. Anyone who watched pre-cable American television through the 1970s and 1980s knows Vinko Bogataj. His catastrophic crash during a ski-jumping championship in Germany established establishing Vinko as the "Agony of Defeat Guy" from the opening credits of ABC's Wide World of Sports. The date was March 21, 1970. It is not just that Vinko spun through the air like a German bisque doll. Athletes fall and fail all the time. Yet producers plucked Vinko from a pile of thousands of clips, immortalizing him as the modern archetype for losing in sports. Fabio did not just have a bad photo-op. Watch the video. He rode the rest of that ride with parts of a bird impaled in his multi-million-dollar face, whining, whimpering, cursing in Italian, blood flecking the togas of those girls, who had to be tripping. One cannot begin to imagine Fabio’s panic. Oh wait, yes, one can. Caught on camera, it lives forever on YouTube. Being violently birded on a roller coaster guarantees making the five o’clock evening news everywhere. For the first time in my life, I thought, maybe it was not only me. Bad things happen every day, all the time, all year round. May be that there are months with even more tragedies than March. March, however, is the unluckiest month of all. Now I am no scientist, psychologist, or sociologist. This fear of March, this is just my thing. Yet for years, often when I share my thing with people, it becomes their thing. Is luck, or bad luck, random? From the German (gelücke), Slavic (lukyj) and Russian (luchaj), the concept of luck is rooted in destiny and fortune. So perhaps luck is less chance happenstance and more converging circumstance. Not controllable, but maybe luck is predictable, at least on some level. So before you read further, be warned. This book will change the way you look at life for 31 days each year. When the strange season comes, something will happen. Then my thing will become your thing and you will beware the ides of March forever more!

Beyond the Ides--March like you've never known!
Beyond the Ides is an impressive collection of historical facts that occurred in March. As you read through this book, you’ll find interesting events, some you may have known and some you may not have known. If you enjoy history, you will enjoy this book. And if history isn’t your thing, read it anyway because it’s written to be a fun experience. The events the author has selected will keep you wanting more.

Cool read. Interesting.
Great read. The author really goes in depth into lots of different periods in history to prove his points. Hard to put down once you delve in.

Highly recommended!!
What a ride! At first, I was skeptical, but this meticulously researched and expertly written book made me believe that March is, indeed, the bloodiest, craziest and most unfortunate month on our calendar. The author is a master storyteller who takes the reader on a riveting, compelling journey. As I moved through this page-turner, I ran the gamut of emotions. At times, I laughed out loud (the story at the beginning of the book about Fabio's "tragic" encounter with a duck on a roller-coaster ride is hysterical!), and at other times (e.g. the descriptions of the March disasters and massacres, as well as the author's touching recollection of his deep connection with his late father) I wiped away a few tears. Highly recommended!!