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Hello, my friends. Dr. E here. And I'm Gabby. And welcome back to the podcast, my hoes. Oh, dear God. Do you want some life updates? Do you want some tea? Do you want some... Who invented moving, Gabby? What? Bast... You know who it was? It was those goddamn paleolithic people that always moved around with the animals. They invented moving and have cursed us ever since... We just finished... I hate this. I'm tired.
Yeah, you're like rambling. Are you good? Do you need to do this tomorrow? I'm fine. Okay, guys. So this episode is going to be about the origin of mundane everyday things. And I just was packing up our bathroom and I was like, you know what? Who the heck invented hangers? See, I love this. She got... You don't understand, guys. You do not understand how passionate she got specifically about this. Because now at this point, my wife is finally...
finally understanding those weird little thoughts that constantly would appear in my head and make me wonder, hmm, where does this thing come from? And that, for anyone who has watched our shorts over the years, that is the origin behind a lot of those videos. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not that I've never wondered before. It's that I've never wanted to procrastinate doing anything so badly in my life than I did wanting to procrastinate moving. So...
You know, I did what I had to do. I mean, OK, considering how it is that I just started this podcast episode in the first place, I get it. I do. It's a nightmare. But anyway, so this is going to be like a part one, which like is going to release on Patreon early this weekend. And then I'll release part two, hopefully early next week. But that will be a patron exclusive. And I think it's going to cover a lot of like kitchen stuff.
Because I also had to pack up the kitchen. So... We had to pack up a lot of things in order to leave. And hey, if you know, I'll say this for anyone, if you have any of your own, we're like, oh, where does this come from? Just send that in. We'll add it to the list of the stories that we're doing here. Leave it in the comments. We could just keep on looking at the origin stories of everything. I mean, it's endless, really. Okay, but first up, we have hangers.
Like the little plastic ones, the things that take up way too much space in bins when you're trying to fricking pack them and they all get tangled together. OK, I'm getting a little distracted again because we're going right back to the whole pain with moving. Explain the history of hangers here, Gabby. Wait, am I doing this episode? You had a whole thing. Didn't you tell me that you had a thing for hangers that was like really surprising that you learned about them?
Or like what? No, it's what it led to. The whole thing with closets. Yeah, that's what it was. OK. I mean, if you want me to do this episode, I can. But my voice is less than soothing and I hear it all the time from everyone. You know what? All right. Well, then, my friends, we're going to dive into history and all the weird kind of shit that you're going to experience and know about life. Hangers, regular old clothing hangers.
Now, here's the thing. I said this. This is what I was kind of alluding there to with Gabby. In order to explain the whole thing with hangers, you need to understand what exactly it is the hangers went into in the first place. Bosets.
Yeah, I know. We're getting very specific. We know that before closets, people would utilize things like, you know, chests or other furniture pieces that would hold clothing and fold it up with like ancient Egyptians utilizing baskets because go figure when you're in a place that doesn't really have a lot of wood, then you're going to end up just using reeds and whatnot to make baskets. And that's how you're going to store pretty much everything. So.
They would do that. Then the Roman soldiers would utilize armoriums and the French would turn this into the armor. Like, I'm not even joking. The ancient Romans would, well, they would put their armor and stuff in it and then they'd like carry it around because of course you needed, they didn't have suitcases or rucksacks. Isn't that what soldiers use? No, well, specifically the Romans,
There was a development that they had, and I've talked about this with Marius' meals, where they did have a very interesting way of carrying their armor on campaign because soldiers were actually required to use their own or they were required to carry their own gear. So you know how you think like a backpack, right? They had a backpack walking stick, basically.
I want you to imagine those stands that you typically see in productions where, you know, it's like a T-post and there's a helmet on it and the armor like you. It's a thing that people would actually put their armor to showcase it. Yeah. Imagine that, but you are carrying it on your shoulder. So it would be a long stick that would be forked at the end. At that point, just wear it, bro.
Because what ends up happening is that it carries a lot more than that. And then at the same time, the weight distribution of it ends up not wearing down your entire body while carrying. Sure. That's the point. So it carries a lot more than that. Anyway. Yeah. The French did this with armors. Then in England in the 1500s, they had walk-in closets. But instead of storing clothing, they would use it for tools and maps and books and things like that.
So, when did the hanging closet that we know today become a thing? The type of clothing storage that lead to the need for hangers. Because, you know, you actually hang a bunch of things up in closets. That's the whole point of what happens now. The thing is, everyday average people, not just nobility or the wealthy, they started to get more clothing. The need for efficient clothing storage became necessary then.
So in the late 1800s and early 1900s, closets started appearing in America. And the first closets that were built and advertised were part of the Dakota apartment building in New York City, which at that point makes sense because, again, we're talking about the 1800s. And the 1800s means industrialization.
Industrialization means factories. Factories means producing a shit ton more of everything way more easily and cheaply. So people started getting a lot more clothing. Consumerism. Yay. Literally. Because before, you know, you had peasants that would have to make their own clothes and whatnot. And it's like, this is the whole point of like, oh, you would have your everyday outfit and then you would have your Sunday best, like literally your best piece of clothing for Sunday when
when you went to church. How do you think those people would react to seeing like, you know, those influencers who are like, stop my guest bathroom with me. And then they pull out like 500 minis of every single like toiletry product you could ever need. And then they proceed to fill up their entire bathroom with things that like
Why would you need all of that? It feels like you're describing a celebrity that is just trying to LARP as a regular person. No, have you not seen those? No, the closest that I've seen is you've showed me the makeup people who buy literally everything and then don't use it. But they show off all the makeup that they've collected. That's kind of one of them. But yeah, these are like people who are like stock my car with me. And then they stock their car with like insane things. And you're like,
When would you ever use that? Or stock my guest bathroom, stock my junk drawer. You can stock a junk drawer naturally. I just feel like it has to be rage bait because that level of consumerism doesn't even, it doesn't sound, I wouldn't say realistic, but it doesn't even sound sane. I don't know. No, no, it just outright does not. So I just want to know the people who had like their two outfits, how would they react to like a TikTok?
stalking just like 50 different types of lip balms. Their brain would melt. Okay, this is going to sound like a random thing in here, but I know. So there is a joke of the internet that the everyday average person
like the average male, but also female, I'm sure because everyone is a little bit pervy at times. The average person has seen four naked bodies in their life or no within the last year as a modern day person.
than the wealthiest and most powerful kings in history who had pretty much access to any bates or whatever that they wanted. How? Like, how are you seeing naked bodies? Yeah, but not everybody watches that. I understand. But that's the thing. The fact that it's at people's fingertips, that they could basically just immediately access it in many ways. This is unprecedented in human history that that is possible.
It would blow their mind. I wonder what that's doing to everyone's brain. The studies about it in like 20, 30 years are going to be wild. Yeah, probably. Because that can't be good. Well, maybe it can. I don't know. Maybe we'll evolve to like... I don't know where we would evolve to. I don't know. But when we were going on this, I can only imagine. What if we gave a peasant a taki? No, a furloko. Like the original furloko. Furloko.
Like, do you remember the Four Locos from high school? Wait, what? Like, the original Four Loco. Remember? The alcoholic drink? Yeah. I didn't drink. I didn't drink until... That doesn't mean... You wouldn't know what it would do, though. Right? No. Okay. Just... Anyway. I'm curious about this now.
What did it do? A lot. Probably brain damage. Okay, give a peasant a four loco of Taki and a cup of coffee and let's see what happens. Anyway, so moving on from that, we know about the invention of closets. The next logical step after this is going to be hangers because that's what's actually being used here. Now, for a lot of people organizing a closet, this is something that would be almost impossible without hangers. And I'm pretty sure most of us use hangers every day.
Now, while there are rumors that Thomas Jefferson was the inventor of clothes hangers, it's not something that most historians hold is actually credible. Instead, the most likely candidate for the invention of the coat hanger is a man by the name of O.A. North in the year 1869. Do you actually want to know about the original Foloco? Yes. Okay. I told you this. So all I know is that it got banned, right? Why? And like, well, it got replaced too. Because...
And we're going off of the Google AI, so... But basically, the original Far Loco contained 12% alcohol, malt liquor, plus a mixture of stimulants, including caffeine, guarana, and taurine. It also included wormwood, which apparently was removed because there was a controversy surrounding the ingredient in absinthe. And then the formula was later reformulated and the stimulants were removed in, like, 2010. Because apparently there was, like...
People who drank them would, you know, the overconsumption would get blackouts, injuries. And apparently people allegedly died. Oh, wait. Which led New York to ban Four Loko in 2010. Isn't this like one of those things where because it's also pretty much what was kind of like an energy drink that it could create some serious health issues? Well, you're not supposed to drink caffeine with alcohol. So there was a much greater risk of things happening. I remember stories about people dying.
dying after having like four or five for locos. Okay, well, first of all, why would you do that to yourself? Oh my Lord. But yeah, that's the story of the original for loco. See, you all are getting bonus content within this that I find hilarious in the first place. I just realized in 2010, I only knew the stories because I went to school with a bunch of older kids, but I was not, I was like not even in high school, was I?
In 2010, you would have been because it would have been. I was homeschooled and in a different country, so I have no clue what grade I was in. Oh, true. Yeah. Fair enough. All right. So this invention, talking about hangers, is attributed to North because he submitted a patent in Connecticut for a hanging device that had a hook at the top as well as shoulder supports for clothing. However, there were multiple other submissions for similar patents around the time because, you know, go figure. That's kind of what happens.
Anyway, clothing hangers really started to gain popularity in the 19th century because of the amount of people that wore suits to work and had to keep those suits looking good. And this was especially important because now a lot of those people who wore suits didn't have housekeepers to work.
iron their clothing every day and so hanging them up was vital yeah because you went from like nobility and like important wealthy people wearing suits to like you know just bankers and you know like your class maybe your upper middle class but not wealthy enough to actually afford stop help yeah well maybe you have help but you're not having them iron your clothing every day that would be excessive yeah like maybe you could afford a cleaner that comes by once a week but you're not like
Up there, like in previous centuries, necessarily. I get that. Then in the 20th century, the hanger evolved closer to what we use today when a man named Albert J. Parkhouse from Jackson, Mississippi, twisted wire to form two ovals on either side with a hook at the top.
Then, from there, people just kept improving the design. Some designs added wood to the middle in order to make these wire hangers sturdier. Some changed the shape slightly to hold different items. Some would add cardboard to the wire to prevent wrinkling when draped over it. Then, in 1965, Jared Weikman would patent a hanger design with a wooden part for holding the clothing and a metal hook.
Two years later, 1967, J.H. Batts would patent the plastic hanger, which is probably what the majority of us use here today. Which, like, I know there's, like, fancier hangers, but, like, you have to be, you know, those fancy satin ones. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Those are so annoying. I hate those. I love those because your clothes don't slide off. They're so bougie, but they're so expensive. So, like...
you know, this plastic hanger. Those hangers never fit my clothes properly. I always hated them. Maybe your clothes are weird. Wow. Wow. Oh, just call me out here. Why don't you, Gabby? My clothing is weird. Let me get normal clothes. T-shirts. So you can use normal hangers. I wear T-shirts. That's all I wear. And you know this. I wear T-shirts and shorts. I am that guy in the middle of winter wearing T-shirts and shorts. So then you shouldn't even be using hangers.
Okay, you don't. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, that's the story of hangers. Next up, we're going to be talking about bidets. And from also, I guess, in that note, since we're going to be talking about literal toilets or spraying water toilets, we've got to talk about toilet paper. Because you can't just go from bidet, you know, like you've got to start off with what do we use before the bidet or with the bidet?
I don't know. A sponge on a stick with the Romans. Well, that could have been a toilet cleaner because I think the, I don't know, maybe like the, from what I was reading, the proof of that came from some guy killing himself with one. But, right? It was like a gladiator or something.
I don't remember. But off the top of my head here, that is sound. Wow. Okay. Allegedly. Allegedly. All things in history. But I wasn't really focused on that due to the fact that I was trying to figure out bidets. So to all of our American listeners, here's the thing. We've traveled a lot over the world. Bidets are actually quite nice. Surprising at first. A bit.
strange to get used to but it is something that is actually quite nice you feel clean squeaky clean yes minty fresh you don't feel as shitty afterwards stop this is a very serious episode this is yes thank you the history of bathroom practices and all the crap involved in that yes so much to unpack here
Anyway, in ancient times, people would do a variety of different things. They didn't have toilet paper. They would use stones. They would use leaves. They would use moss. They would use a variety of different stuff. They would rinse with water and snow. Yeah. Pottery is one thing that we're going to be mentioning here at some point, I'm sure. Seashells, fur. Pretty much whatever it was that was available, you really had to get creative and use what they had as anyone who ever had to go to the bathroom while in the woods will tell you, you got to do what you got to do.
Then we know in Rome, tesoriums were used. Now tesoriums are the thing I was talking about here before where toilet sponges were basically a sponge on a stick that may have been used and then cleaned in a bucket of vinegar or salt water and then reused, or they could have just been toilet cleaning brushes. But allegedly the stories of communal toilet sponge are something that
We're pondered today by many men who think of the Roman Empire daily because basically we all have that shit on our mind constantly, but not necessarily thinking about their bathroom practices. More on them shitting on everyone else, metaphorically speaking, with a blade.
Right. Right. Are you okay? No, no, I'm probably not. Let's be honest. As long as I have been doing the show and as many things that we have covered, I am not okay. And you know this. That's true. Then the Greco-Romans would use moss or leaves or pieces of ceramic called bassoi. Now, the bassoi may have started as a
Ostroka, which were pottery pieces that had names on them, which is something that the Greeks specifically like the Athenians would utilize, which funny story from that Ostroka or Ostroka ostracize. That's what it comes from. So they would just shit on their enemies. The idea being is like, have you ever seen those images in World War Two where you would have like Happy Easter Adolf is written onto artillery shells?
Yeah. Basically like that. You know, it's like a tongue in cheek joke towards the enemy. I totally get that. But they were like,
Putting their enemies' names and then wiping their butts with it. Yes. That's next level. That is some hater energy. Yeah. Like, I don't think I hate anyone enough to do that. Like, I would have to exert energy into writing their names and then wiping my ass with them. Well, think about it. You can do something in their face by, like, spitting in their face or something as an insult. Or you can do something more privately, like wipe your privates with...
Their name. The thing about being that specific type of hater is that it's not actually affecting the other person. That is just something you, that is affecting you. It's self-satisfaction. How is it satisfying? I want my haters to know I am hating on them. I would FaceTime them to show them what I'm doing. That's, that's what I'm saying. So what you do then, right? You do it here. You get the pottery piece, right? You use it. No, better yet, better yet. No, better idea from this. You don't just do that. You get a pottery cup.
Right. Right. Smashing. Right. You take the pieces. Right. Inscribe their name into it. Right. Use it. Right. And then over time, put it back together again after using it. Right. To then present them with the shit mug. Okay. I like that. That's like next level demented. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Let's see. I like my haters to know I'm hating.
I'm pretty sure if you handed them a shitbox with everything. That's what I'm saying. It would not satisfy me enough to just do that. I would need it to affect them. There's no point in hating. Fair enough. Fair enough.
So, all right. From that, in Herculaneum, in Italy, small fragments of cloth were found in the sewer, which could have been, you know, a major flex back then. Because if you're actually using cloth or things to wipe, that is stuff that was handmade, which means it would be pretty elite of you to be doing that. You can't just use the disposable materials. So when does toilet paper become a thing, though?
Well, in the 6th century, the scholar Yen Chieh Tui would write, paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from the five classics or the names of sages I dare not use for toilet purposes.
Then 14th century China was making 10 million packages of 1,000 to 10,000 sheets annually. And in 1393, perfumed paper sheets were made for the emperor's imperial family. That's a flex, bro. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, you can go out and buy scented paper.
Like toilet paper now. But for that to be a thing back then, you know, that was literally only something that the wealthiest of the wealthy could afford to do. China was leagues ahead with the toilet game. And yeah, for that. Yeah. I mean, there were a lot of impressive things going back in history that they had done. And they were the ones who invented paper after all, or at least paper as we think of it. So it would make sense that they would be the first ones to start to develop it.
So obviously, that is the Chinese then. The Western world, though, was not going to have toilet paper as we know it today.
Until it kind of became a thing in 1857. This being when a guy called Joseph Gady would market the first toilet paper. He sold what he called, I kid you not the name, I found this hilarious in the first place, medicated paper for the water closet in packages of 500 sheets at $4.50. But, of course, that is like the mid-1800s. What did they use before that?
In the West. Gabby, you were raving about this. Okay, what do they have in like Illinois, Indiana? You curse at it every time we drive to Chicago. A lot of corn. There's corn literally everywhere. Yeah, they use corn. Like the cob? I feel like it'll have to be like the leaves that wrap the corn cob, right? I would think so. Would you just take this? And someone's just like, ah, yes, fresh corn. What?
Yeah, that'd be, I mean, it would work, but I feel like it'd be smooth. You have to like peel it off and then that would be papery enough, I think. I think so. I mean, the husks, for anyone who's seen the shape of corn husks, they're like kind of concave. They bend inwards. So I could see, you know, you using that and then wiping with it. But what about the tufts at the end of it? Because, you know, you've seen corn at the top of it. It has like the stringy little puffball bits that poke out of there.
Do you think that tickles? Probably. That's such a weird thing to say. I understand that, but that's like a specific thing that they would utilize. And I get it. You got to use what's available. And in that case, there's going to be a lot of corn available because it's literally everywhere. Yeah. All right. So if that is what they are using,
By 1890, the toilet paper roll that we know it was introduced. And by 1930, there was splinter free toilet paper. But before they introduced the toilet paper roll in the 1800s, they just started using newspapers and magazines. So.
Like they used newspapers and magazines up until they started making them glossy. Yeah. I mean, I get that. It's like the whole thing for like when you bring the newspaper into the outhouse and like that's why those one of the old jokes. Right. Well, yeah, but also they'd use the Farmer's Almanac and they would hang it up in their outhouses. And this became such a common practice that the Farmer's Almanac actually just started drilling holes in it. So it was already fine.
pre, you know, like ready to be hung up in the toilet. Okay. So if a farmer's almanac was a yearly thing that had to be produced, and this is the thing that they would get, it means that once you're done with that spring, you don't need the spring section because at that point, the prediction has already happened. It's already over. You don't need it. I get it. You could use that as toilet paper immediately afterwards. That makes a lot of sense. Wow.
So wait, hold on. I do have one major question, though, because I know this is the end of toilet paper. What do you mean splinter-free toilet paper? I would hope that all toilet paper would inherently be splinter-free. See, I didn't look into it, but I figure it was pretty much what it said. I'm assuming there were splinters in the toilet paper. Oh my God. You know, you could get like, if it's rough paper, you could get paper cut and such. Like,
Like, am I assuming they didn't work out all the kinks? This is making that really shitty one-ply rough toilet paper that you would oftentimes see at offices, you know, the really cheap industrial stuff. That makes that sound pleasant.
Yeah, because at least it's splinter free. At least it's splinter free. Oh, well, anyway, next up, then we're going to have bidets. Now, it's not entirely clear where the bidet was invented, but most people agree that it was likely in France. Around the late 17th century, the bidet arose as a simple wash basin on a wooden bench. It was basically a modified and sheer chamber pot, but it was more so intended to accompany a chamber pot.
These early bidets were mainly for women as they came in handy during certain periods of time. Like a period. I knew you. A period of time. Oh my God. Yeah. I'm sorry. But men would also use them. It just ends up being something that is really useful. I think Napoleon, allegedly, from one of the articles I was reading, left a silver bidet to someone in his will. I don't know if it was his bidet, though. Maybe he just had a silver bidet.
That is a flex, though, to have just something as a toilet that is made of a precious metal.
Even if he didn't do it, that was something that just existed for some people. That is a lot. Yeah, that is extensive. Now, in order to use these first bidets, you had to have either a leg on either side as though you were riding a horse. And this leads people to assume that this is why people are why they are bidets because this was the type of the name of a horse back then.
Eventually, the bidet would evolve from just a bowl of water to a hand pump that sprayed water. And then eventually, with the development of indoor plumbing, we get to the fancy bidets that we see today with fully running water. Or in some cases, like what you see in Japan, fancy spray settings, varying temperatures and a lot more like heated seats and they play music. Oh, my God. For anyone who's not experienced a Japanese toilet. Well, here's here's the thing, though.
you can have one of these fancy ones that like talk to you or you'd have the hole in the ground and you got to squat. So choose wisely. That is true. You won't even know because that's the thing. Every toilet was a surprise in Japan.
Everyone like I've and none of them were the same. Like you'd walk into one bathroom and they taught it would basically greet you like just lights come on. It opens up on its own and you're like, whoa. And then you walk into the other one and you're like, oh, I got a squat. You know, like hold that squat. OK, like it's like a serious business in the ground. Like it was always a fun. I had fun. I had a lot of fun.
And so keeping then with the bathroom theme, our next topic is showers. Like the modern day shower, the fancy shower head and all of its fixtures, that sort of thing.
So we know throughout history that people have found ways to clean their bodies. Whether you were going dipping in a river or a lake or standing under a waterfall taking baths, if you're a rich noble who had a servant fill it up for you, people were going to wash themselves. The Greeks would even clean themselves with olive oil. Some cultures would just go and pour water over themselves and that's how you would do it.
But when did the stand up under a water spout and rinse off type of body cleaning become a thing? Because that is the overall majority of people who are cleaning themselves today in, I'd say, more developed countries are specifically taking showers. You take more showers typically than you do baths. They are quicker. They're more efficient. That's typically what people do. I just have no drive to soak in my own body.
body soup. I don't know. It's just I like a shower, you know, like you feel clean when you take up every time I take a bath. I take a shower right after because I don't feel clean. I do get that. So I feel like it's just a waste. See, I always enjoyed it.
just because reading and whatnot here, but I understand that reservation. No, because you get cold so fast in a bath unless you have like a fancy water, but then you're just wasting water, refilling it with more hot water. It's just a waste, a waste of time, a waste of water. Yeah. I get it.
Well, if we're going and looking at the history of that, then in 1767, the first shower was patented by William Featham, who was a stove maker from London. The patent was for a device that pumped water into a basin above someone's head. Then they would pull a chain and that would release the water. However, with this invention, the water that drained from that basin would then just get pumped back up into the top basin again and then be reused. So basically,
Honestly, I got to say, not wasteful. Of all designs, that is way less wasteful than what a lot of people do with their modern showers. It just may not be as effective. It's because they didn't have the indoor plumbing thing figured out yet. So they had to just have a servant fill something up and then they would just reuse that water. You think if someone got really dirty, like in the case of what would happen where you had to fill up a bath, that they would...
wash themselves. They would wait until the water that was coming out was running brown or something. And they would go, ah, yes, servant, I need a new round of water. And then they would cycle it with another bucket or two of water and then do the same thing again. I feel like they'd have to because you wouldn't really get clean, would you? No, otherwise you wouldn't because you would just be spraying yourself with dirty water.
So then around 1810, the English Regency shower was invented by an anonymous inventor, and this improved that initial shower design. The prototype was 10 feet tall and made of various metal pipes. A basin was suspended above the pipes and a nozzle was attached to that basin. But this shower also reused the dirty water. So again, not the cleanest.
But then, in 1850, when plumbing started to be used more, showers could be improved with systems that no longer had to reuse the same dirty-ass water again and again and again. Massive improvement. And finally, in the 1920s, the United States would push showers out to everyone instead of just focusing on wealthy.
Then in the 1980s, showers blew up in popularity with all types of fancy showers being introduced because I'm assuming at that point we're talking about a variety of different fancy shower heads and materials versus just
You know, like that scene that you would have of a prison where it's just the little nozzle. Oh, you mean the one in this apartment right now? Yeah, the one that's literally in this apartment that we're in right now. We're in like this little apartment for a month. We used to actually live. I'm not even joking. We used to actually live here in the exact same one bedroom apartment when we first got married.
Which we could not afford, mind you. We had no business even living here. And now we're like, damn, that's shower, man. Like, I'm not even joking. You start the shower and the floor shakes. Why does the floor shake? They haven't updated these apartments in decades. I feel like it's the pipes because you can literally feel the water shaking the floor of the apartment to get to the shower. I'm shook.
Yeah. So that it blows up the 80s. Now, here we go. The dominant form of like, at least in the United States and up in a lot of places in the West is if you're going to wash yourself, you pretty much are going to take a shower, get it, get clean, you get out, you go to work. That's the shower.
People just don't have servants to fill up or emboss for them like they used to. And that's what's wrong with society today. No, but I've done that for you in the very few times you've taken baths where, okay, guys, little side note in here, but very effective thing. If your bath water goes cold, have a tea kettle nearby, like one of those electric kettles that
very quickly boils water, you just pour boiling water into the cold tub and it's now way more comfortable. But disclaimer, that is dangerous and there's a burn risk. So it's just really not worth it. Again, back to my original point, baths are a waste of time. Well, speaking of waste of time, just utter trash ideas. Boo. We're going into the next topic now. Garbage services.
So now, when did trash collection become a thing? What did people even do before? Now, obviously, today we have very elaborate trash and more waste than ever before due to, as Gabby has already mentioned multiple times here, a culture of consumerism and the rise in non-biodegradable products utilized by the average person. There's a lot of plastic and crap everywhere.
Well, the earliest landfill on Earth has been traced back to 3000 BC, to the capital of Knossos on Crete. Now, the Minoans would discard their solid garbage in large pits. Then, in 500 BC, the city-state of Athens developed the first municipal dump and required citizens to take their trash out.
one mile outside of the city limits, which is a lot of weight. Like that's a ways to go in the first place for just if you have to haul trash down to the dump, you know what I mean? However, in a lot of cases, we've seen terrible health issues arise from poor sanitation standards where illnesses were spread due to trash and waste in heavily populated areas, building up to very unpleasant levels. We will say the least.
Now, many big cities started to attempt to fix these terrible conditions by implementing street cleaning or waste collectors. Paris in the 15th century
would hire waste collectors to take trash outside of the city. But even this solution had its own problems on their own, and it wouldn't fix the issue going into the 16th and 17th century. And guys, I got to say, going into this, I went on a deep dive into this because I found this hilarious because it literally focuses not on global trash services, but specifically just the French. Because for anyone who has been to Paris or seen it, there are parts of Paris that are
Really gross, to say the least. And that is not a new concept. That has been the case for quite literally hundreds of years. So in 1563, Charles IX had ordered that with, quote, no exception, every property owner must tidy up in front of his own residence at precisely six o'clock every morning and again at three in the afternoon.
Seems simple, right? Literally, it is a royal decree. It is a law. If you live there in the city, you got to go out at these times, clean your shit up. Don't let it be dirty. Here's the problem.
Homeowners were going to amass then all the mud, trash, and other filth against the wall of the building or in a basket until the trash collector arrived, kind of like what you can do nowadays where if your trash cans are full, you just put the trash on the side of your house because you
You can't really fit anything else. My wife is looking at me right now because I always end up doing that every time we have a project and she gets mad because the stuff sits there for weeks sometimes. That's yeah. And you can't do that anymore because you were super lucky. We did not have an HOA. Now we have a freaking HOA. You're going to get fined out them. But yeah, I'm not doing that. Like they will not stand for it. I will not stand for it. I will be the person reporting you to the HOA. I'm going to be like sneaking them out like, hey, that house. Mm hmm.
It's been sitting there. It's trash. We cannot have it in our good, clean neighborhood. Because guys, I'm not even joking. It sounds crazy, but he had a...
a giant bin full of like ashes from his fire pit for like two years. And it was standing outside and it was so heavy because every single time it rained, the rain would like seep into these ashes forming like a muddy sludge. And it was just on the side of our house and I had to look at it for two years.
And then we knocked it over today or like a few days ago and it made like the sickest crack you could possibly imagine. You know those videos of like in TikTok where they would throw rocks off of bridges onto ice? And it was like that, but slush.
It was really cool. It was not cool either. It was really cool. Anyway, this is why they made laws for dumping trash because what the heck. They did here except in the case of the French it didn't really work. That's kind of what we're getting into. In a lot of different places though they...
with their trash pickups and whatnot and trying to gather all of it. It also ended up leading to a lot of scavengers. So then they had to make new laws to kind of like avoid that. I don't know. Europe was going through it. Yeah, that was the, you know, there was a job in, I say a job. It was more of a occupation in Victorian England where, you know, that big new sewer system that they created because they developed a huge sewer system during
during this time. Oh, yes. The big new sewer system from Victoria in England. So, well, they did. They had this issue of people that were not necessarily homeless, but they had some that were some that would just go down there to try to basically make extra money. They would go into the sewers in order to sift through the waste to search for valuables.
Because people would oftentimes lose rings, pocket watches, like other little stuff. Not just from the toilet, but they would fall in through like off the streets and get swept into the sewers. Huh? Because you would have drains that would go into it. So if you lost a valuable, that would be pretty big.
And so you're more likely to find that because if someone drops something in the street, anyone could pick it up. But more likely it got swept into the sewers. And that means that if it was going to be anywhere, it was going to be in the shit. It's like beach combing. Like the people who go and comb through beaches. Exactly like that.
But with feces. If you're making money off of it and you're making good money, then heck yeah, bro. Some people did. Some people got really lucky and found some good stuff. That's pretty cool. I'm going to start flushing rings in case we bring that. Uh-huh. Sorry, guys. Okay. Okay. Okay. This is some lore, which you will only get if you listen to this audio podcast. But a few years ago, it was like what? 2023? Yeah. I think it was 2023. Yeah.
I'm a bit dramatic when I'm upset. And when I say a bit dramatic, I mean incredibly so. And I don't even know what had occurred, but I was in a tizzy, as my best friend calls it, and I flushed my wedding rings, like the engagement ring and the wedding band down the toilet.
And so, I don't know. Maybe someone will find it one day. Who's to say? I like to think that maybe those rings time traveled back in time. Some Victorian child is wearing them on his pinky right now. But then, guys, as if that was not bad enough, right? I was like, okay, well, my rings are gone. I flushed his ring so they can be together.
So all of our original rings are somewhere in a toilet, a sewer, just hanging out. They're just chilling. But they're together and it's true love. It's true. It's poetic. Anyway, that's going to come up in a divorce court one day, maybe. Or maybe not, because I feel like
I don't know. That happened and we were just like, okay. You were the only ones that get access to this lore. This is one of those things. This is the only time that people get to hear actual things like this. I mean, like my close friend's story on Instagram know that I flushed my wedding ring, but I don't think anybody knows I also flushed yours so they can be together. Oh wow, hidden details now revealed.
So we've gone off a little bit. No, it was my fault for bringing up the whole thing about Victorian toilet systems and sewers and people sifting through it. I just felt like mine was actually related to your thing. It's true.
It's true. So this, these edicts and stuff that I'm talking about, like this one also forbade inhabitants to throw household or human waste out of the window and into the street, which was a very common thing that was done because, you know, it could just get washed away in the sewer or into the drains, which not to say drains for like underground sewer system. I mean, just off into the ditches and the waterways. But the thing is,
The requirement was that it should be neatly swept towards the walls or kept in a basket. Citizens were alerted to the edicts by posting some public squares and announcements about the city by town criers, and anyone who violated this edict would be fined. And of course, you know, no one wants to lose money, right? Especially at a time where people do not make as much money as they do today, that would hurt so much worse. But as the continuing filth of the streets revealed, the fines didn't do shit.
And when I say shit, oh boy, do I mean actual shit. That is a chamber pot joke.
A 1608 edict was even more specific. Instead of simply pushing dirt towards the walls of buildings, inhabitants were ordered to work together as a brigade twice a day to push waste from the front of their homes towards the river. And after each dumping of, and I quote, urine, cooking grease, and bath water, they were to then rinse the street with at least two buckets of clear water, you know, to kind of like drive it away and eventually create a literal river of
waste that is heading towards the river, and this is something that they were supposed to do. And just as butchers were forbidden to leave animal crap in public passageways, residents were forbidden to leave their own human waste in the streets. One would hope at this point it would be obvious, but people were different back in the day. In 1637, 38, 50, and 1660, more edicts had to be issued about this exact same subject.
all reiterated the same regulations that proved ineffective. No one would follow them. Paris streets still oozed vile muck. So crap from chamber pots thrown from windows would mix with the dirt's unpaved streets, which would form a, and I quote, this is how it is described, a sulfurous smelling stew.
That's pleasant. On Thursdays and Fridays, Parisians had no choice but to walk through inches of blood from slaughterhouses that would be tossed into the streets because, you know, they would literally do things where on certain days, certain animals were brought from the market to be slaughtered. So that means that day or the following day, that's where all the blood, guts and viscera and other things then gets tossed and that would go into the streets. So you have shit.
and blood, and a whole bunch of other stuff that ends up mixing with unpaved dirt roads. Um, that's fine. I mean, it could be worse. Yeah, it could. To the point that streets ended up getting named things like Cowfoot and Tripe because that's where that shit was being tossed everywhere, turning the mud of these neighborhoods red.
And like, like literally the mud would be just red. That's what it would be. The filth of Paris was just not something that you could escape from. It would attach itself to the sides of buildings. It was in your clothes. It was always in your nose. Like you could smell this everywhere. There was one British observer who would comment and I quote, this is a direct quote from him.
Paris is always dirty. By perpetual motion, dirt is beaten into such a thick, black, eucalyptus oil that where it sticks, no art can wash it off. Besides the stain this dirt leaves, it also gives off a strong scent that it may be smelled many miles off. In other words, Paris stank.
Anyway, after many committees and trials and tribulations, which I'm saying right now could easily be a whole podcast episode by itself, the French doubled down on their edicts by issuing a hard reset on street cleanliness, specifically after hiring a new chief of police. Nicolas Delary-René, or I'm not even sure how to pronounce his last name here, but this guy Nicolas, he was not going to take any nonsense from the people of Paris.
He would dive full force into the cleaning of the city. He imposed a mud tax on every Parisian who had a home or a business in it. The tax was intended to offset the substantial cost related to street maintenance, and there were swift and steep penalties for late payment or refusal to pay, including the immediate seizure of a person's furniture. So like if they were going by, like the HOA example that you brought up, Gabby, imagine if our HOA
As we walked by, they saw trash on the side of our house and they went, no, we're going to take his couch now as compensation.
That's fair. That's what we do. HOAs can actually take your house, I think. Oh, crap. Yeah, no, that's actually a perfect example. The French created the first HOA. But can't they? Like, if they have fines against you and the fines pile up? If the fines pile up to a set point, they can take it to court to basically get... They can't just seize your house. What happens is you
is you get a lien placed on your house. Lien? Like the sprite with cough syrup? No, no, no, no, not like that. It's like if you get sued and then you eventually have to sell your house and move away or whatever, the proceeds from that sale will go towards paying your debt. So if they have a lien on your house, it's like they could get that money from it.
That's crazy. So you'd have to sell your house to pay them. Potentially, if you got sued like that, you were forced to as part of your assets. What? Yeah, it could happen. Wait, wait, wait, wait. How do you prevent that from happening? Don't do the shit that gets the fine. Right. And don't piss off the heads of the HOA.
Right. When you're not in a position of power to actually be able to resist it. But they can actually like take your house. Well, they can't just take your... Okay. I say that. There's different rules for different HOAs and some are very, very strict like in the case of Gulf Force communities and other kinds of stuff. But they don't have like legal authority to take your stuff necessarily. But you could get in actual legal trouble and they could sue you if you agreed to the contracts of the community and you are not then abiding by it. Okay. Okay.
We could do a whole video episode on just HOAs and stupid things that have happened in history. Oh, we need to do that next. Actually, I'm texting this right now. Yeah, I like that idea. We could do a thing of like, like, really, you know, those Reddit stories of am I the asshole? I hate those. I hate this. They're so fake. However, I am very tempted to do one of like horrible HOA stories throughout history. That sounds very fun. So.
Yeah, the police chief would also require inhabitants to pitch in personally. At 7 o'clock every morning, hundreds of men would have to move through the city, ringing bells, announcing that it was time for street cleaning, and all the Parisians, young and old, everyone together, had to come outside, half asleep, and just start sweeping all the filth around them, or cleaning up, or wiping it away, or doing whatever.
Thousands of trash collectors would then follow them to haul any of their refuse outside the city to aid street cleaning efforts. New ordinances would forbid residents from tying animals outside their homes because, you know, you kept your goat on hand in case you needed your goat. In this case, they weren't allowed to just do that. You had to actually have it in a set specific area that couldn't just be by the street.
If you went and did something like leave the carcass of a dead animal animal because you slaughtered your other goat, that was bad. A first offense could earn you a fine. The second one could go and Scott, what even would it be? It would get you a beating. Yeah. If you left a dead goat or something out on the side of your lawn, they, the police could come and just start beating the crap out of you. Well,
First of all, why would you leave a dead goat outside? Home slaughter. Maybe you wanted it for something else. Maybe you're going to use it for fertilizer. I don't know. I don't know this guy's life. There's no point in killing a goat and just leaving it outside.
Nobody would do that. This was Paris. We've already covered it. And I feel like if you kill that goat and you're not going to at least use it, then you shouldn't have killed the goat. And at that point, you deserve the beating. All right. I'm using an example of like some guy with just a dead goat outside of his house. That's a terrible example. But it's probably something that was more commonly associated with the actual places like butcheries where they would actually slaughter animals potentially, like slaughterhouses. Nobody's leaving a whole goat out there.
Just for that, you know, outside of our apartment. Oh my God, Stephen Bell. I'd be the guy to provide the beating. I can't get a goat in here. What are you talking about? Also, there's no way Booker or Moonbeam would allow me to do that. They'd be too freaked out. Of course. No, Booker would like a goat. Booker would like a goat? Oh, yeah. I think Booker would do well with a pygmy goat until it starts headbutting him. Yeah. Yeah.
So while he was truly harsh about all this, Nicholas would soon learn with a lot of frustration that there was a very harsh reality about Paris. They wanted to be dirty because instead of going out and cleaning up all their trash, the residents of Paris would largely start to just hoard it.
inside of their homes. No. Yep. To the point that a commissioner surveying the neighborhoods north of the Louvre would describe the, quote, infection and stink permeating from inside homes that were full of, and I quote, fecal matter and dead animals, a putrefaction that was as large in their homes as it was in the countryside.
Like, I don't even know what else I could possibly describe this. Still, despite all this, at least it wasn't in the streets. And so you know what? Nicholas won. They got clean streets after it all. Just really dirty homes on the inside where people didn't care. That was the attempt to clean things up. He would say, and I quote, that horses are slipping around on the pavement because the streets are so clean now. Because all the shit is still just inside the people's homes. Yeah, that's the end.
So in the United States, if we're going to move on from that, in 1757, Benjamin Franklin started the first street cleaning service and pushed for people to bury their trash. In 1842, a paper was published in the UK that linked diseases to poor sanitary practices, which led to a lot of countries improving their infrastructure to allow for sewers and water-cubing plants. And in 1885, the first incinerator for burning trash was built on Governor's Island in New York.
In the early 1900s, waste dumping was very common and not regulated, and that led to the issues of trash being dumped in inappropriate places like wetlands or parks. So regulations had to be put in place to regulate trash disposal. And while the U.S. was rolling out waste management services for major cities in the countryside or in small towns, piggeries were utilized. Which, Gabby, do you want to explain piggeries? Because you were telling me about this and I was just laughing because...
It's so fitting because I knew how pigs were used in farms, but not for general purposes. And this detail is hilarious to me. Okay, so basically you get a lot of pigs and then all of your food waste, you know, these stuff that will break down and smell and probably attract, you know, things that could spread disease and it's just unsanitary. You take your food waste and you give it to the pigs. The pigs eat this food waste and
And then they poop. And it was not a problem in winter. But what happens when you have a ton of pigs in the hot summer sun? Produces a lot of hot, smelly shit. So your food waste isn't going to smell, but the pigs poop.
They'll get you. Was that then able to be... They utilized it as fertilizer though, right? Probably. Which I guess at the time here is something that they would just, you know, have to do because you're talking about growing season. But it's so creative. I put it in numbers there. Like, I think, I hope I did, but it was like X amount of pigs could clear tons of food waste. It was a lot. It was pretty effective. That's also how they got rid of dead bodies. Right.
Oh, one of the ways that people have talked about for specifically getting rid of dead bodies, and it's a thing that I've seen in a couple like serial killer stuff, is that you basically go to a farm where there's pigs and pigs eat anything. Like pigs will actually, like goats, eat anything. But has anyone actually done this? Yes. What? Yes. Yeah. Like they've discovered traces of, you know, like shoes and other stuff that were left of people that were thrown to the pigs. Yeah.
Yeah, that is a thing. Ah, there's always a catch. In 1934, the U.S. Supreme Court would ban dumping waste in the ocean. By 1945, many cities in the U.S. were then using sanitary landfills. And of course, with the introduction of landfills and trash collection services springing up, the trash truck had to be invented.
Now, of course, if we're going to talk about the garbage trucks, there's another little spin-off of this. The first actual real garbage truck, or carrying thing, I guess you could say, this was used back in 200 AD when the Romans had teams of men pick up garbage and place it in wagons, but modern garbage trucks sprang up in 1897. This being when Thornycroft Steam Wagon and Carriage Company made the first self-propelled garbage
garbage trucks for Chiswick District Council, and this would replace their wagons and carts that they'd been using. Then, in 1937, the first American mass-produced hydraulic rear load compacting garbage truck was introduced. A man by the name of Garfield Wood would patent it in 1938, and he called it the Load Packer.
which is a great name, but it didn't gain popularity due to World War II, which was kind of more important then. Then, in the 1950s, the garbage trucks were updated to a side-load process with a hydraulic power blade that would pack the garbage into the truck, and this is something that is still used today. In the 90s and the 2000s, garbage trucks were improved greatly. New technology for the arm operations and packing systems were developed, leading to modern advanced trucks that we see today.
And now we have most major cities and even rural areas covered by waste management systems with modern trash collecting trucks. And yeah, that's been way more about trash than I thought that we were going to discuss. So yeah, the last thing then that I want to talk about is the history of garbage disposal. And I will say that Gabby's personal opinion, like you put a whole thing in here. Do you want to explain it?
About your opinion that you have? My opinion? Yeah. About garbage disposals. They're amazing. I mean, yeah, it's an opinion, but where I'm from, we don't have garbage disposals. So you just have to like have your gross food scraps. But here you just shred it up. Never think of it again. It's the best thing ever. It is a really easy thing. Do you not agree? Just don't put doll heads into it like what we first discovered with our first house. Well, they had like too many children, I think. I don't know. Yeah. I think at a certain point,
The kids to house space ratio gets warped and then you get broken dishwashers and garbage disposal. So it happens. Yeah. So in 1927, architect from Wisconsin named John J. M. invented the insincorator. I love that name so much. He made a whole company out of it. Oh, we don't live there anymore. No, we don't.
Our old house, the garbage disposal, was an Insincurator brand garbage disposal. That's actually what it was? Yeah. It's still around today. I love that name. That is how you keep a brand alive, is just through a goddamn amazing name. This was basically a garbage disposal system. In fact, the company he created was called Insincurator, and as you said, it still exists today. Now...
You're right. So we do have that. The cool thing about this invention is that it absolutely was a case of someone seeing a need and thinking they would create something purely out of convenience. Instead of having food waste disposed of in landfills or piggeries, they could simply grind it up and send it to the sewer system, leading to less smelly decomposition of said waste. And in World War II, these garbage disposals were huge on ships.
Then, the housing market boomed post-World War II, and they started being used in residential kitchens. In fact, in 1947, after a swine flu outbreak on the piggeries that were utilized for food trash disposal, the city of Jasper, Indiana made a push for disposals to be installed in every home. By 1985, over 40% of households in the U.S. had a garbage disposal installed.
Now, the funny thing is, even though many places embrace the garbage disposal in New York City, garbage disposals were actually illegal.
The reason being is that the use of disposals had a possibility of damaging the sewer system, and the laws banned food waste entering the sewer system. Many cities had this concern and similar laws, but most other cities changed their minds and them. New York City held off the longest. But today, a garbage disposal is found in many, if not most, houses in the U.S., and genuinely they are a major convenience. It's just a really cool thing to have. But that's the story of that one.
the in sync orator and also the end of what we're going to be doing here today. This was only part one. This one went on for a while. There's a lot of different spinoffs that happen here. Genuinely, if any of you have any ideas on different topics that we should cover, different ideas mentioned or not mentions inventions, I should say, let us know. Absolutely. Let us know.
Thank you all for listening. I really do appreciate you. Check us out on Patreon if you want the Patreon exclusive version of this that is going to be going on there, or if you want to listen to any of the other ad-free episodes or bonus content. Goodbye, my friends. I will see you all here next time. Bye.
Hello, this is Matt from the Explorers Podcast. I want to invite you to join me on the voyages and journeys of the most famous explorers in the history of the world. These are the thrilling and captivating stories of Magellan, Shackleton, Lewis, and Clark, and so many other famous and not-so-famous adventurers from throughout history. Go to explorerspodcast.com or just look us up on your podcast app. That's the Explorers Podcast.