Toilet paper.

You might be surprised to find out the toilet papers are relatively new invention, and that when it first came out, people couldn't even figure out why they want to buy something like this.

Well, we don't talk that much about how people in history cleaned up after doing their business, but the history of how we came to have a product just to do that is history that deserves to be remembered.

The history help people cleaned up after going to the bathroom can be difficult to determine, because wiping was done with things that were commonly available.

But biodegradable grass leaves, moss, straw and even snow.

The various materials used often depended upon the weather and where a person lived.

So, for example, people living in warm places often used coconut fibers.

People living in ancient Greece used small pebbles or pieces of pottery to scrape themselves clean, and some historians think that they might have used pebbles that had their enemies names written on them.

Ancient Romans used a bit of sponge on a stick called a Zillow spongy um, the rich may have had their own silos budget, but usually they were used in public restrooms, where there could be 10 or 20 people using the restroom at a time after you were done, you would just rinse the sponge in a mixture of water, salt and vinegar and leave it for the next person.

Bacteria may have grown in the sponges, and some historians think that that contributed to spreading illness.

What you used in the bathroom might have depended upon how important you were.

For nearly 500 years, the Kings and Queens of England had a special servant that was titled The Groom of the Stool when it was their job to take care of the king while he was doing his business.

It's not clear if they were really responsible for wiping the king's bottom, but they were told to look that there be blanket cotton or linen toe.

Wipe the king's nether end.

Commoners at the time would likely have you straw that could never have afforded to use something expensive like linen cloth for such a purpose.

Well, that might not sound fun to be the groom of the stool.

In fact, the job was highly prized.

The groom of the stool or first lady of the bedchamber, if the ruler was a queen instead of a king, often got to hear the king's private thoughts, which made other courtiers afraid of them For the secrets that they held.

The position was often held by a person of high nobility and wasn't eliminated until 1901 the first people to use paper for their bathroom needs as far back as 1500 years ago, where people from China where paper was invented.

One Chinese official from the time wrote that he had to be careful which paper he used so that he didn't clean up with an important document.

Most people in China probably just used scraps of paper, but by about 600 years ago they were manufacturing paper in China just for use in the toilet.

But ah, lot of that might have been used by the very wealthy people.

Like the people who attended the Chinese emperor.

In 13 91 the emperor of China decreed that paper should be made specifically for the emperor's toilet time, and the emperor was very important.

So he decreed that that paper should be made in cheats that were to foot by three foot in Europe.

There wasn't a lot of a demand for paper yet because books were written on parchment, which was made from animals kid.

But about 560 years ago, a man named Johann Gutenberg invented a type of printing press that made it much easier to make books, and that meant that people needed paper.

At the time, paper was made by hand by pressing fibers on a screen, but paper at the time usually wouldn't be used for the toilet.

It was still rare and was expensive in Colonial America in the time of George Washington and Ben Franklin.

People mostly used corncobs by the early part of the 18 hundreds.

People in Europe in America where most commonly using scrap paper like a newspaper or pages from catalogues in the bathroom because they were free and offered reading material.

A man named Joseph Gaity produced the first commercial toilet paper in 18 57.

It was sold in single sheets that the cost of 1000 sheets for a dollar and each sheet had his name printed on it.

but his medicated cheats didn't sell very well.

Americans were embarrassed to buy something meant for their behinds, and many people couldn't afford to buy toilet paper.

Couldn't even see why they would, when they could simply use an old newspaper.

Then came indoor plumbing.

In 18 29 the hotel in Boston became the first in America to use indoor plumbing.

By the end of the century, American manufacturers were producing better products and nice homes had indoor toilets.

You may have heard of Scott Paper.

It was founded in 18 79 by New Yorkers Clarence and Edward Scott in Philadelphia.

They did not make paper, but bought it in bulk and marked in toilet paper through hotels and drugstores.

That made it something special for fancy hotels or healthy and hygienic products sold in drugstores and not something unmentionable.

People started to want to use the toilet paper that they had seen in fancy hotels.

And so in 1902 the Scott Company started to manufacture its own toilet paper, and they quickly became the world's largest manufacturer of toilet paper.

As indoor plumbing became more common in the United States and Europe, toilet paper became more important because newspapers and catalogues would clog the pipes as late as 1935.

Some makers of toilet paper advertise their paper was splinter free, which emphasized that the product was about comfort as well as being clean.

Still, it took a long time for the unmentionable to become pensionable.

It wasn't until the 19 seventies that television networks in the United States allowed advertising under the name toilet paper rather than calling it bathroom tissue.

Today, toilet paper is big business about seven billion rolls of toilet paper or sold the United States every year, although about 70% of the people in the world don't actually use toilet paper.

And I can't really explain why.

Brings rushing to buy all the toilet paper and grocery stores right now, but it is kind of funny that they're doing that.