Toilet paper is first mentioned in 589, the year the Sui reunited China.
The scholar Yan Zhitui wrote that paper bearing quotations from the classics he 'dared not use for toilet purposes'.
The event
More amazing facts
- 578 · 2006 Japan's Kongō Gumi stayed independent for 1,428 years, from 578 to 2006.
- 578 · 622 The Japanese company Kongō Gumi is older than Islam: it was founded in 578, 44 years before the Hijra — Muhammad's move to Medina, from which the Islamic calendar counts its years.
- 600 'Checkmate' is Persian shāh māt, 'the king is helpless'. Around 600 chess reached Sasanian Persia from India as chatrang, and spread from there to the Arabs and Europe.
- 607 A Chinese emperor took offence at Japan over the sun. In 607 Prince Shōtoku wrote to him: 'The Son of Heaven where the sun rises, to the Son of Heaven where the sun sets.' Emperor Yang was furious.
- 615 · 683 The Maya king Pakal took the throne at 12 and ruled for 68 years, from 615 to 683.
- 615 · 618 · 622 Within seven years three great eras began on three sides of the world: in 615 twelve-year-old Pakal became king of Maya Palenque, in 618 the Tang dynasty was founded, and in 622 Muhammad made the Hijra.