Offbeat knowledge for the moment

Before his debut on Magnum, PL, Tom Selleck appeared twice on The Dating Game, but didn’t get picked either time.

In 1943, Percy Clark of UCLA made the mistake during the Rose Bowl game of being tackled behind the goal line while attempting to return a punt against Georgia. UCLA lost the game, 2-0. One newspaper carried the headline "CLARK 2, UCLA 0." Clark was openly shunned by classmates, and, in despair, he quit college a week later. He moved to the woods in Oregon, where he spent many years as a recluse.

When medieval clans wanted to downsize and dispose of unwanted folks without murdering them, they just burned their houses to the ground as a small hint. Thus the phrase "to get fired."

The strongest bone in the body, the thigh bone, is hollow. Ounce for ounce, it has a greater pressure tolerance and bearing strength than a rod of equivalent size in cast steel. When an average adult is walking, his weight puts a downward pressure of 12,000 pounds per square inch on each thighbone. In this case, even the thinnest part of the thighbone, at 1-inch thick, supports the weight of a male African elephant.

The average human body holds enough phosphorous to make 2,200 match heads.

Counting Crow lead singer Adam Duritz recalled in a 2000 interview that Rolling Stone Keith Richards once reprimanded him for sipping chicken soup to cure a coldand instead gave him a bottle of Guinness.

In the Roman Republic of 500 B.C., the senate could appoint a supreme national commander for a limited time during periods of emergency. While in charge, his word was law. His title in Latin meant "I have spoken." The title was "dictator."

Contrary to popular belief, Daniel Boone reportedly did not like coonskin caps.

Until 1937, the referee had to throw a jump ball after every basket.

In 1990, Irish rock singer Sinead O’Connor became the first musical recording artist to refuse a Grammy Award, which she won for her recording of, ironically enough, "I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got." She claimed that too much emphasis was placed on the pop charts, and not enough on the ills and abuses of the world.