I have heard about this since I was a kid. The story as I heard it was that Indiana tried to declare pi equal to three. It turns out they actually wanted pi to be equal to 3.2.
Wired ran the story last week on the 111 year anniversary of the legislation that (luckily) did not make it to a final vote in the senate after being passed in the house.
House 246 was sent on to the state Senate and was on the verge of passage when everyone’s bacon was serendipitously saved by C.A. Waldo, a Purdue mathematics professor who happened to be in the Statehouse on another matter. Shown the bill and offered an introduction to the genius whose theory it was, Waldo declined, saying he already knew enough crazy people.
If only we could have someone like Waldo around when our federal government tries to create a law involving technology.