50 Fun Facts About Bathroom

Which Elizabethan courtier described England's first flushing toilet, the Ajax, in a 1596 book?

He was one of Elizabeth I's 102 godchildren, and the book was also a coded attack on the monarchy.

The S-trap, the bend that keeps sewer gas out of a toilet, was invented in 1775 by which Scottish mechanic?

He was a watchmaker by trade and held the first patent for a flush toilet design.

Contrary to popular legend, which Victorian plumber did NOT invent the flush toilet?

He did hold nine patents, including the floating ballcock, and his company's manhole covers in Westminster Abbey are a minor tourist attraction.

The Victorian plumber whose company name became slang held how many patents?

Three were for water closet improvements, and his firm received several royal warrants.

George Jennings installed the first public pay toilets at which 1851 event?

His 'Monkey Closets' in the Crystal Palace caused great excitement and earned over £1,000 a year.

The euphemism 'to spend a penny' comes from what?

John Nevil Maskelyne, better known as a stage magician, invented the penny lock.

Which Roman emperor is believed to have begun charging citizens to use public toilets?

Public urinals in France and Italy are still nicknamed after him.

Very early toilets that used flowing water have been found at Skara Brae, a Neolithic village where?

The site was occupied from about 3100 BC to 2500 BC.

Which ancient culture is credited with the world's first known urban sanitation systems?

Its cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa had drains and bathrooms more than 4,000 years ago.

In which country was paper first recorded as being used for personal hygiene, in the 6th century AD?

Purpose-made toilet paper was being mass-produced there by the 14th century.

Who is credited with inventing modern commercial toilet paper in the US, first sold in 1857?

His 'Medicated Paper' came as flat sheets watermarked with his name and was billed as 'the greatest necessity of the age'.

Which firm popularised toilet rolls when it began marketing them in 1890?

Until 2004 it was one of the last US makers still selling rolls in beige, blue and pink.

As late as the 1930s, the Northern Tissue company advertised its toilet paper with what selling point?

Which tells you what the competition was like.

Before toilet paper was widely available, rural Americans commonly used what in the outhouse?

Old newspapers and the Montgomery Ward catalog served the same purpose.

The crescent moon cut into the door of American outhouses was popularised by whom?

Its supposed historical basis is doubtful; the symbol owes more to comic strips than to carpenters.

The word 'bidet' is French for what?

In Old French 'bider' meant to trot, and the name refers to the straddling posture.

Combination toilet-bidets were found in roughly what share of Japanese households as of 2015?

They are also popular in South Korea and often come with seat warmers and dryers.

Which Japanese company makes the Washlet, the toilet seat with a built-in bidet wand?

Founded in 1917 as Oriental Pottery Company, it developed the first Washlet between 1978 and 1980.

The first known mechanical shower, worked by a hand pump, was patented in England in 1767 by a maker of what?

William Feetham of Ludgate Hill got there first; the ancient Greeks had showers long before, but they broke down with Rome.

In which 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film does the most famous shower scene in cinema appear?

Saul Bass storyboarded it, and in the source novel Marion is decapitated rather than stabbed.

The plumbing plunger was invented in 1874 by John Hawley, a New Yorker in what trade?

His patent called it a 'vent-clearer' and it was marketed as a 'force cup'.

Where was the earliest surviving personal-sized bathtub, a 1.5-metre pottery tub, found?

Modern tubs are made of acrylic, enamelled steel or cast iron, or fibreglass-reinforced polyester.

Which US president's administration broke up the price-fixing 'porcelain trust' of toilet makers in 1912?

The same president is the subject of a persistent tale about getting stuck in the White House bathtub.

Which ancient Greek reportedly shouted 'Eureka!' after noticing the water rise in his bath?

He is said to have run naked through the streets of Syracuse to share the discovery.

In a Roman bath complex, what was the caldarium?

The tepidarium was warm and the frigidarium cold; the caldarium sat directly over the furnace.

The Farnese Bull and the Farnese Hercules were recovered from which Roman bathing complex?

Great imperial bath complexes contained libraries as well as pools and were social hubs.

The earliest evidence of a cleansing fat-and-alkali mixture, around 2800 BC, comes from which ancient civilisation?

A recipe for a soap-like substance was written on a Sumerian clay tablet around 2500 BC.

Olive-oil-only bars, prized for mildness, are known by which two names?

It is prized for its mildness; both names come from historic soap-making centres.

William Addis is believed to have made the first mass-produced toothbrush in 1780 where?

He had the idea in prison after deciding a rag with soot and salt was not getting the job done.

The first tooth-cleaning brush with nylon bristles went on sale in which year?

DuPont replaced boar bristles with the new synthetic fibre; the earliest bristle brushes were used in Tang dynasty China.

In the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, what did Americans rank as the invention they could least live without?

It beat the car and the computer.

In 2013 the rubber duck was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame alongside which game?

The museum is in Rochester, New York.

In January 1992, 28,800 plastic bath toys including yellow ducks were washed off a ship in which ocean?

The Friendly Floatees included blue turtles, red beavers and green frogs, and oceanographers tracked them for years.

Ernie's song 'Rubber Duckie' from Sesame Street peaked at what position on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970?

It was written by Jeff Moss and sung by Jim Henson, and did even better in Australia at No. 10.

In software engineering, 'rubber duck debugging' means what?

The name comes from an anecdote in The Pragmatic Programmer about explaining a problem step by step to a duck.

Which of these is a traditional nickname for a chamber pot?

Others include a Jordan, a jerry, a guzunder and a po.

A 'Jack and Jill' bathroom is one that is what?

An en suite, by contrast, is accessible only from a single bedroom.

World Toilet Day, an official United Nations observance, falls on which date?

Singapore tabled the resolution in 2013, its first ever before the UN General Assembly.

London's central sewerage system was built by Joseph Bazalgette in response to which 1858 event?

The smell from the Thames drove Parliament to pass an Enabling Act despite the colossal cost, and cholera outbreaks fell away.

Astronauts on the International Space Station use a toilet that can recover what from urine?

Urine diversion is the key: liquid and solid waste are handled separately in microgravity.

Why do so many people enjoy singing in the bathroom?

The lack of soft furnishings gives the voice a pleasing resonance.

In US real-estate jargon, what fixtures does a 'half bath' contain?

Also called a powder room; a '3/4 bath' adds a shower, and a full bath has a tub as well, though listings famously disagree on the definitions.

What is the preferred everyday term for the bathroom in Canada, at home and in public buildings?

Americans lean on 'restroom' and 'bathroom', while British English offers 'the loo', 'WC' and, for public ones, 'lavatories'.

The 10-foot-tall English Regency shower of about 1810 used metal pipes painted to look like what?

A basin above the pipes fed a nozzle over the user's shoulders, and the used water was pumped straight back up to be reused.

The word 'toilet' comes from the French 'toilette', which originally meant what?

It first referred to the cloth draped over the shoulders during hairdressing, then to grooming at a dressing table, and only much later to the plumbing fixture.

One of the Kohler company's first enameled products was a bathtub made by coating what?

Kohler and J. L. Mott Iron Works went on to sell porcelain-enameled cast-iron tubs, the luxury clawfoot models of the late 19th century.

In UK bathrooms, the only permitted power sockets are special ones labelled for what?

Other appliances must be permanently wired fixtures; US and Canadian codes instead require ground-fault circuit interrupter sockets.

Alabaster tubs and twin hot-and-cold plumbing were excavated at Bronze Age Akrotiri on which island?

The system predates the 15th century BC and is even more advanced than the famous surviving tub from the Palace of Knossos on Crete.

Before bringing showers to French army barracks in the 1870s, doctor François Merry Delabost first installed them where?

As surgeon-general at Bonne Nouvelle prison he replaced individual baths with mandatory communal showers, arguing they were cheaper and more hygienic.

Which ingress-protection rating should bathroom light fittings carry to be considered splash-safe?

Good bathroom lighting is also meant to be glare-free, with two light sources at least a foot apart at the mirror to keep shadows off the face.