Some 179 years passed between the first flush toilet (1596) and the patent for the S-bend that traps smells with water (1775).

1596 · 1775 · apart: 179 years

Alexander Cumming’s trap is still in almost every toilet today.

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The event

• Harington’s flush toilet1596 · Kelston, near Bath. The courtier-poet John Harington built a flushing toilet with a cistern at his house and described it in his 1596 satire The Metamorphosis of Ajax. The title was a pun on “jakes”, slang for a privy.

16th century · 18th century

More amazing facts

• 1596 The flush toilet was invented by Elizabeth I’s godson, the poet John Harington.
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• 1599 · 1673 High heels were made for men. Persian horsemen used them to grip their stirrups, and after Shah Abbas’s embassy to Europe in 1599 aristocrats copied the style.
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