270: Holy Crap, It's Thomas Crapper's Birthday!

The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 39.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2022

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s episode honors the man who unwittingly inspired Mike’s career by inventing the first flushable commode, Mike shares a David Sedaris story about a turd that won’t flush titled Big Boy then, in an homage to eighth-grade humor, Mike and Chuck swap embarrassing stories involving the necessary.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello friends, this is the way I heard it episode number 270 and this is a special one.
0:08.5	Oh yes, holy crap.
0:11.8	It's Thomas Crapper's birthday September 28th, 1836.
0:17.4	That was the day on this day, 186 years ago, one of the greatest plumbers of all time
0:23.2	was born.
0:24.4	Contrary to popular belief, Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet.
0:29.2	A lot of people think he did.
0:31.1	He did.
0:32.1	That honor belongs to Sir John Harrington, who actually was a distant ancestor of the Game
0:37.4	of Thrones star, Kit Harrington.
0:40.2	Another story, but he built the original flush toilet in 1596 for his godmother who
0:45.4	happened to be Queen Elizabeth I.
0:48.2	She didn't like it, said it was too loud.
0:51.0	Crapper got the credit for that invention though, partly because of his name, but mostly
0:56.0	because of a book that was published in 1969 called Flushed with Pride, the story of Thomas
1:03.5	Crapper, which has been roundly dismissed as a work of complete and total fabrication.
1:10.0	In other words, the way a lot of people heard it is completely wrong.
1:15.0	What Thomas Crapper did was a lot more extensive than what John Harrington did.
1:20.3	Crapper held all sorts of plumbing patents, including one for the ballcock, which is
1:25.9	fun to say.
1:27.1	The ballcock prevents toilets from overflowing.
1:30.8	Crapper also designed new and improved versions of the early flush toilets, along with manhole
	...

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