A toilet is a bowl, usually with a wooden or plastic seat and flushed by water, used for urination and defection.
Skara Brae is an exceptionally preserved Neolithic village of c.3100-2500 BC on the Bay of Skaill, Orkney, north-east Scotland, exposed below sand dunes by storms in 1850. At Skara there is an estate of ten one-roomed houses. In the corner of each little house is a tiny alcove, with a hole in the ground that drops straight into a system of drains that flow into the sea. These are the first known lavatories to be built.
China boasts one of the earliest known toilets: a hut above a pig pen in Xian around 3000 BC.
Excavations in Mesopotamia, Crete, Egypt, and India have brought to light examples of elaborately constructed and carefully designed water closets and sewerage systems.
Brick-built seat-closets of 2000 BC were discovered in the Indus Valley. They were situated on the ground and first floors of private homes. Sloping channels joined them either with a receptacle outside, or a sewer.
Ancient Cretans in their island's capital, Knossos, had closets built over a conduit of running water. The palace of their famous king Minos, which was unearthed by Sir Arthur Evans, boasted superb marble lavatories with wooden seats. The pans were constructed so as to hold water and were flushed either by rainwater or, if that was not available, by water drawn from a cistern.
The Romans used communal toilets, with both genders sitting side by side chatting and sharing a sponge on a stick to clean themselves.
Not only did 43% of Pompeii's buildings have indoor toilets, some also had plumbing for toilets on the second floor.
In 1184 a party of nobles gathered in a room within the Church of St. Peter in Erfurt, Germany, right above the latrine pit of the monks. Due to the weight of the party the floor of the room collapsed and up to 100 nobles died plummeting in the fecal pool.
The mayor of London Dick Whittington gave the city a public toilet with 128 seats in 1421, known as Whittington's Longhouse.
Sir John Harington, author, courtier and godson to Queen Elizabeth I, invented the world's first flushing lavatory, called the Ajax, in 1589. Harrington had been banished from the court for telling risqué stories in front of the ladies. In the mansion he built at Kelston, in Somerset he installed the world's first toilet, which he called "a privy in perfection".
The Ajax's design included an overhead water tank on top of the house, a hand-operated tap that controlled the flow of water into the pan, and a valve that could be opened and closed to release sewage into a cesspool near-by. Harington recommended that it was flushed at least twice a week, but human waste still had to be collected and disposed of manually.
Though Queen Elizabeth I had her godson's closet copied in her palace at Richmond, the general public cold-shouldered the device. It was another 150 years before flush lavatories began to be common place as it relied on running water - not very convenient for most citizens beneath royalty.
From the 1500s to the 1700s, British kings would appoint a "Groom of Stool" – Someone who would talk to them while they used the toilet.
Prior to modern sewerage and plumbing, people emptied their slops out of the window into the gutter below. Before doing so, they warned unsuspecting passers-by to "Watch out for the water!," in French, they said "gardez l'eau," and the loo is all that remains of the (French) water slightly corrupted. This also explains the early building custom of having the upper stories of a house jutting out: it was to protect pedestrians from untoward showers.
In 1775, watchmaker Alexander Cumming, took out a patent for "a water closet upon a New Construction," which was an improvement on Harington's design. It differed in one significant aspect with the invention of the "S" bend. The soil pipe immediately below the pan was bent so as "constantly to retain a quantity of water to cut off all communication of smell from below." Cumming's 1775 patent laid the foundations for the modern flush lavatory system, by eliminating the nauseating feature of the toilet.
Marie Antoinette had an early flush loo installed at Versailles in 1780. It was operated by servants.
The Union ironclad, Monitor, designed by John Ericsson in 1861, was the first U.S. ship to have a flush toilet.
UK trains were first fitted with lavatories in 1873, but only in sleeping cars.
Yorkshire plumber Thomas Crapper perfected his flushing toilet valve in 1863. By drawing water uphill through a sealed cistern, it was both more effective and hygienic than previous lavatory systems.
When Prince Edward (later Edward VII) purchased his country seat of Sandringham House in Norfolk in the 1880s, he asked Thomas Crapper & Co. to supply the plumbing, including thirty lavatories with cedarwood seats and enclosures, thus giving Crapper his first Royal Warrant.
In Victorian Britain, loo seats were made of wood. The wealthy sat on mahogany or walnut while the poor perched on untreated white pine.
The 1960 film Psycho had a scene where Marion flushed the money down the toilet. It was the first movie in the USA to show a flushing toilet which was a "cause of concern for the censors".
Royal Family, a 1969 television program about the British royal family's life, was seen by 30.6 million viewers in the United Kingdom. During intermission, so many toilets were flushed simultaneously over Britain that it caused a water shortage.
All In The Family first came on the air on January 12, 1971, It gave us the first toilet flush in sitcom history during the first season. While earlier shows might have alluded to bathroom activities or even shown glimpses of bathrooms, the audible act of flushing the toilet was considered taboo and unheard of on TV until All in the Family broke the barrier.
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| Pixiebay |
HISTORY
Skara Brae is an exceptionally preserved Neolithic village of c.3100-2500 BC on the Bay of Skaill, Orkney, north-east Scotland, exposed below sand dunes by storms in 1850. At Skara there is an estate of ten one-roomed houses. In the corner of each little house is a tiny alcove, with a hole in the ground that drops straight into a system of drains that flow into the sea. These are the first known lavatories to be built.
China boasts one of the earliest known toilets: a hut above a pig pen in Xian around 3000 BC.
Excavations in Mesopotamia, Crete, Egypt, and India have brought to light examples of elaborately constructed and carefully designed water closets and sewerage systems.
Brick-built seat-closets of 2000 BC were discovered in the Indus Valley. They were situated on the ground and first floors of private homes. Sloping channels joined them either with a receptacle outside, or a sewer.
 |
| Evidence for hydraulic sewage systems in the ancient Indus Valley Civilization. By Rama's Arrow |
Ancient Cretans in their island's capital, Knossos, had closets built over a conduit of running water. The palace of their famous king Minos, which was unearthed by Sir Arthur Evans, boasted superb marble lavatories with wooden seats. The pans were constructed so as to hold water and were flushed either by rainwater or, if that was not available, by water drawn from a cistern.
The Romans used communal toilets, with both genders sitting side by side chatting and sharing a sponge on a stick to clean themselves.
 |
| Public toilet remnants from Ancient Roman times in Ostia Antica |
Not only did 43% of Pompeii's buildings have indoor toilets, some also had plumbing for toilets on the second floor.
In 1184 a party of nobles gathered in a room within the Church of St. Peter in Erfurt, Germany, right above the latrine pit of the monks. Due to the weight of the party the floor of the room collapsed and up to 100 nobles died plummeting in the fecal pool.
The mayor of London Dick Whittington gave the city a public toilet with 128 seats in 1421, known as Whittington's Longhouse.
Sir John Harington, author, courtier and godson to Queen Elizabeth I, invented the world's first flushing lavatory, called the Ajax, in 1589. Harrington had been banished from the court for telling risqué stories in front of the ladies. In the mansion he built at Kelston, in Somerset he installed the world's first toilet, which he called "a privy in perfection".
The Ajax's design included an overhead water tank on top of the house, a hand-operated tap that controlled the flow of water into the pan, and a valve that could be opened and closed to release sewage into a cesspool near-by. Harington recommended that it was flushed at least twice a week, but human waste still had to be collected and disposed of manually.
 |
| Harington's flush toilet described in A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called the Metamorphosis of Ajax, 1596 |
Though Queen Elizabeth I had her godson's closet copied in her palace at Richmond, the general public cold-shouldered the device. It was another 150 years before flush lavatories began to be common place as it relied on running water - not very convenient for most citizens beneath royalty.
From the 1500s to the 1700s, British kings would appoint a "Groom of Stool" – Someone who would talk to them while they used the toilet.
Prior to modern sewerage and plumbing, people emptied their slops out of the window into the gutter below. Before doing so, they warned unsuspecting passers-by to "Watch out for the water!," in French, they said "gardez l'eau," and the loo is all that remains of the (French) water slightly corrupted. This also explains the early building custom of having the upper stories of a house jutting out: it was to protect pedestrians from untoward showers.
In 1775, watchmaker Alexander Cumming, took out a patent for "a water closet upon a New Construction," which was an improvement on Harington's design. It differed in one significant aspect with the invention of the "S" bend. The soil pipe immediately below the pan was bent so as "constantly to retain a quantity of water to cut off all communication of smell from below." Cumming's 1775 patent laid the foundations for the modern flush lavatory system, by eliminating the nauseating feature of the toilet.
 |
| Cumming's 1775 patent application By Alexander Cummings(Life time: na) - |
Marie Antoinette had an early flush loo installed at Versailles in 1780. It was operated by servants.
The Union ironclad, Monitor, designed by John Ericsson in 1861, was the first U.S. ship to have a flush toilet.
UK trains were first fitted with lavatories in 1873, but only in sleeping cars.
Yorkshire plumber Thomas Crapper perfected his flushing toilet valve in 1863. By drawing water uphill through a sealed cistern, it was both more effective and hygienic than previous lavatory systems.
 |
| Crapper's Valveless Waste Preventer |
When Prince Edward (later Edward VII) purchased his country seat of Sandringham House in Norfolk in the 1880s, he asked Thomas Crapper & Co. to supply the plumbing, including thirty lavatories with cedarwood seats and enclosures, thus giving Crapper his first Royal Warrant.
In Victorian Britain, loo seats were made of wood. The wealthy sat on mahogany or walnut while the poor perched on untreated white pine.
The 1960 film Psycho had a scene where Marion flushed the money down the toilet. It was the first movie in the USA to show a flushing toilet which was a "cause of concern for the censors".
Royal Family, a 1969 television program about the British royal family's life, was seen by 30.6 million viewers in the United Kingdom. During intermission, so many toilets were flushed simultaneously over Britain that it caused a water shortage.
All In The Family first came on the air on January 12, 1971, It gave us the first toilet flush in sitcom history during the first season. While earlier shows might have alluded to bathroom activities or even shown glimpses of bathrooms, the audible act of flushing the toilet was considered taboo and unheard of on TV until All in the Family broke the barrier.
When Bill Withers wrote "Ain't No Sunshine" in 1971, he was working in a factory making bathrooms for 747s. The song went gold, and the factory presented him a gold toilet seat.
Flushing toilets for dogs were installed in Paris in 1978.
Flushing toilets for dogs were installed in Paris in 1978.
World Toilet Day is an official United Nations international observance day on November 19. The day celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 4.2 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve water and sanitation for all by 2030. The UN General Assembly declared World Toilet Day an official UN day in 2013, after Singapore had tabled the resolution.
The Tiger Toilet was introduced to India in 2015 by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help combat the sanitary crisis. Costing $350, it doesn't require traditional flushing, or to be hooked up to a sewer system. Instead, worms are contained in a container below the toilet, where they feast on feces.
FUN TOILET FACTS
Most toilets flush in E flat.
If you flush with the lid up, germs will still be in the air 90 minutes later.
There is a chain of toilet-themed restaurants in Taiwan serving food in miniature toilet bowls.
All disabled toilets in the UK use the same key and all disabled people are entitled to a copy of it.
Many toilets in Japan have a built-in bidet system for washing your anus.
Wembley Stadium in England has the most toilets of any one building, at 2618.
New buildings in Hong Kong must have 1.6 female toilets for every one male toilet.
Most toilets in Hong Kong are flushed with seawater in order to conserves the city's scarce freshwater resources.
The Restroom Cultural Park is a South Korean amusement park centered around toilets.
Airplane toilets are coated with Teflon so your poop doesn't stick when it goes down the toilet. Minimal water is used.
The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets in New Delhi is dedicated entirely to lavatories and their 4,500 year history. Its exhibits from 50 countries includes a replica of the personal toilet of King Louis XIV of France.
Sources Radio Times magazine, Europress Encyclopedia, Daily Express, Chronicle of The World
The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets in New Delhi is dedicated entirely to lavatories and their 4,500 year history. Its exhibits from 50 countries includes a replica of the personal toilet of King Louis XIV of France.
Sources Radio Times magazine, Europress Encyclopedia, Daily Express, Chronicle of The World
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