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In my last post, I listed a series of common misconceptions — facts about the world that we learned in our youth and always assumed to be the gospel truth, except that they aren’t.

Here’s another bunch.

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Lightning never strikes twice in the same place.  A common belief and completely illogical. Consider the fact that lightning strikes the Empire State Building about 100 times per year. Furthermore, as soon as a storm “recharges,” the last location to be hit is as fair game as any other to be struck again.

Before combat, Roman gladiators ritually said, “Hail Emperor! Those who are about to die salute you!” Sheer myth. Despite being popularized later, those words are recorded only once in Roman history. In 52 AD, a large group of criminals condemned to fight each other to the death greeted Emperor Claudius that way, in hopes of being granted a pardon. They didn’t get one.

Once, in a fit of arrogance, Denmark’s King Canute commanded the tide to reverse. The real story: Canute set his throne by the sea and commanded the tide to halt. When the tide kept coming, he told his minions it was proof that the power of kings is “empty and worthless” compared to the power of God. Far from displaying arrogance, he was making a point about humility.

Sugar causes hyperactivity in children. Not at all. Based on a range of studies, there is no difference in behavior between kids on sugar-free diets and kids who have gorged on sweets. Sugar doesn’t cause hyperactivity, it causes fat.

The word “Xmas” is an effort to take Christ out of Christmas. Here’s the real story. The Greek word for Christ is Χριστός (Christos), which begins with the Greek letter chi. Around 1000 AD, English monks began using the abbreviation X in place of Christ while transcribing manuscripts. The first known use of Xmas was in 1551.

Diamonds are formed when coal is subjected to extreme heat and pressure inside the earth. Technically possible, but unlikely. Coal is formed from prehistoric plants just below the earth’s surface. Diamonds are formed miles underground, where the pressure is greater. Diamonds are, indeed, created from highly-compressed carbon, but not carbon in the form of coal.

Humans have five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Aristotle identified those five, and he was quite correct. But since then, science has identified a slew of other senses Aristotle overlooked: the senses of time, balance, pain, acceleration, hunger, thirst, pressure, itching, relative temperature, body/limb position, stomach fullness, and the need to visit the bathroom.

During feasts, the ancient Romans stepped into the vomitorium, where they induced vomiting to make room for more food. This one probably was inevitable. In Roman architecture, a vomitorium was a passage through which the crowds entered and exited a stadium. The word comes from the Latin verb vomere — “to spew forth.” Although that makes for an unfortunate mental image, the vomitorium was not a special room for the purging of food.

The names of many immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, New York, were forcibly Americanized by insensitive government bureaucrats. Stories about this abound, but the fact is, officials at Ellis Island didn’t even keep records. They simply checked the ship’s manifest against the manifest tags pinned to the clothing of the immigrants. If any changing was done, it wasn’t done by the bureaucrats.

The Koran says martyrs for Islam will be rewarded in Paradise with 72 virgins. Not exactly. The Koran merely says Paradise is a blissful place where earthly prohibitions are relaxed. But the Koran is augmented by the hadith, a collection of statements attributed to the prophet Muhammad. Hadith #2,562 says that in Paradise, all believers will receive 80,000 servants and 72 wives under a dome of rubies and pearls. (How that concept applies to female believers, I’m not sure.)