Pakistan ordered its civil servants to go sockless.
From the ever-entertaining Harper's Weekly Review:
A University of New Hampshire instructor who worked after getting his Ph.D. as a Subway sandwich maker proved a key component of one of the oldest problems in pure mathematics, the twin-prime conjecture, by building on an advancement to the Sieve of Eratosthenes, and a boy registered for school in the Philippines under the name Ratziel Timshel Ismail Zerubbabel Zabud Zimry Pike Blavatsky Philo Judaeus Polidorus Isurenus Morya Nylghara Rakoczy Kuthumi Krishnamurti Ashram Jerram Akasha Aum Ultimus Rufinorum Jancsi Janko Diamond Hu Ziv Zane Zeke Wakeman Wye Muo Teletai Chohkmah Nesethrah Mercavah Nigel Seven Morningstar A. San Juan CCCII. "My wife did," said the boy's father, "have reservations."