© Getty Images

An English king perished during a bathroom break -

Indeed, England’s King Edmund Ironside ruled for a very short period (April 23 to November 30, 1016), but that’s because he was stabbed to death while he was in the privy (as toilets were known back then).

© Getty Images

A bathroom break saved a future American president’s life -

Before he became president, Lyndon B. Johnson served in the Navy. On June 9, 1942, Johnson was assigned to fly an airplane, but he had to use the bathroom just before takeoff. When he returned, Lieutenant Colonel Francis R. Stevens had taken his seat, so Johnson had to take the next flight instead.

© Getty Images

A bathroom break saved a future American president’s life -

Luckily, Johnson’s aircraft saw little combat, but the plane he was supposed to have taken before the bathroom break was shot down by the Japanese, killing everyone. Indeed, a bathroom break changed the course of American history.

© Getty Images

A bathroom break killed a king -

On October 25, 1760, King George II of England had to use the bathroom in Kensington Palace, just after he had finished drinking a cup of hot chocolate.

© Getty Images

A bathroom break killed a king -

The king strained so hard that he had an aortic aneurysm and died on the toilet. Years later, it was concluded that George II suffered from a condition known as aortic dissection (where there’s a tear in the inner layer of the body’s main artery), which contributed to the aneurysm and, consequently, his death.

© Getty Images

A dog’s potty break helped treat diabetes -

In 1899, Dr. Oskar Minkowski was discussing with his colleague Josef von Mering whether a person would be able to survive without a pancreas. Dr. Minkowski was of the opinion that it was possible, so he removed the pancreas from his dog to test his theory.

© Getty Images

A dog’s potty break helped treat diabetes -

The dog seemed fine, but Dr. Minkowski started to spot flies around his dog’s pee during potty breaks. He decided to analyze the urine, and discovered it was full of sugar, which meant the dog had become a diabetic. This led to the discovery that the pancreas secretes insulin.

© Getty Images

Thousands of bathroom breaks led to the discovery of phosphorus -

In 1669, German alchemist Hennig Brand collected 1,500 gallons (5,678 liters) of urine and conducted an experiment. He baked and boiled the urine until it evaporated to see what was left once there was no liquid.

© Getty Images

Thousands of bathroom breaks led to the discovery of phosphorus -

The experiment led to the discovery of a white powder that glowed in the dark, which he called phosphorus mirabilis ("miraculous bearer of light"). This was phosphorus.

© Public Domain

A bathroom break started a war -

On July 7, 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army had surrounded the Chinese city of Wanping, when nature called for a soldier named Shimura Kikujiro. The private went to the woods to relieve himself, but when he returned his unit had already left.

© Getty Images

A bathroom break started a war -

It became dark and Kikujiro got lost. The Japanese officials then realized they were missing one man. The unit returned to Wanping and demanded China's National Revolutionary Army let them enter the city to get their missing soldier, but the Chinese refused their request.

The Japanese didn’t take no for an answer and tried to breach the city walls. This became known as the "Marco Polo Bridge Incident," and it started the Second Sino-Japanese War.

© Getty Images

A bath led to an extraordinary discovery -

While not a “bathroom break” as such, this event still took place in the bathroom, or in the bath, to be more precise. We’re talking about the time when Greek mathematician Archimedes was tasked to find out whether a crown crafted for the king of Syracuse was made of pure gold.

© Getty Images

A bath led to an extraordinary discovery -

After failing to come up with a reliable method to confirm such a thing, Archimedes filled a bathtub to take a break. But as he got in, he noticed that water was spilling over the edge and realized that there was a correlation between the water displaced and the weight of his body.

© Getty Images

A bath led to an extraordinary discovery -

This physical law of buoyancy became known as the Archimedes Principle. Or as ‘The Maritime Engineering Reference Book’ puts it: “Archimede's Principle states that a body immersed in a fluid experiences an upthrust equal to the weight of the fluid displaced.”

© Getty Images

A bathroom break helped win World War I -

Australian-British mathematician and physicist William Lawrence Bragg was stationed in France during World War I. In 1915, he was in a military outhouse, completely isolated from the outside world, except for a pipe connected to the ground, located under the toilet.

© Getty Images

A bathroom break helped win World War I -

While Bragg was in the toilet, a gun was fired 1,000 feet (304.8 m) away, but he felt it, as the energy traveled through the air, into the pipe, and up to Bragg’s bottom.

© Getty Images

A bathroom break helped win World War I -

After much thought, Bragg came to the conclusion that each weapon had a unique frequency, so he went on to build a device that could detect infrasound. The device was able to pinpoint the location of enemy artillery within a distance of around 150 feet (45.72 m), which helped the Allies win the war.

© Getty Images

Another king died on the toilet -

This time, it was the King of Rock. Elvis Presley died on the toilet on August 16, 1977. The cause of death remains a mystery, with theories ranging from a heart attack to complications derived from severe constipation.

© Getty Images

Another king died on the toilet -

The autopsy records will become declassified in 2027, and until then we can’t have a definite answer. Still, it’s safe to say that this bathroom break did change music history.

© Getty Images

A request for a bathroom break helped end segregation -

On February 12, 1946, African-American World War II veteran Sergeant Isaac Woodard had just returned to his country when he boarded a bus to go home, in Winnsboro, South Carolina.

© Getty Images

A request for a bathroom break helped end segregation -

At one point during the journey, Woodard asked the bus driver if he could pull over for a bathroom break. For some reason, the driver called the police on Isaac Woodard, who proceeded to beat him up so badly that he ended up spending three days in hospital and losing his vision permanently.

© Public Domain

A request for a bathroom break helped end segregation -

The story of police brutality traveled around the country and fueled those involved in the civil rights movement. Two years later, Executive Order 9981, which ended segregation in the Armed Forces, was issued by President Harry S. Truman.

© Public Domain

A dog’s potty breaks lead to 9/11 -

A 13-year old boy named Charlie Wilson (pictured here as an adult) couldn’t quite stop his dog from peeing on his neighbor's yard. His neighbor, Texas councilman Charles Hazard, killed the dog. Little Wilson swore revenge and spread the word about what the councilman did, so that he would lose votes. Indeed, Hazard lost the election.

© Getty Images

A dog’s potty breaks lead to 9/11 -

Years later, Wilson got involved in politics himself, and was responsible for the allocation of funding and training for the Afghan Mujahideen, who would later split into groups such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

© Public Domain

A gladiator took his own life with a toilet brush -

Ancient Rome Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote an account of what happened. “In a training academy for gladiators who work with wild beasts, a German slave, while preparing for the morning exhibition, withdrew in order to relieve himself–the only thing he was allowed to do in secret and without the presence of a guard. While so engaged, he seized the stick of wood tipped with a sponge, devoted to the vilest uses, and stuffed it down his throat. Thus he blocked up his windpipe and choked the breath from his body… What a brave fellow. He surely deserved to be allowed to choose his fate.”

© Getty Images

Acid, potty training, and modern computing -

In 1968, engineer Douglas Engelbart was working as the head of the Augmented Human Intellect Research Center at the Stanford Research Institute, when he decided to experiment with LSD.

© Getty Images

Acid, potty training, and modern computing -

Engelbart came up with two inventions while he was high, namely the “tinkle toy,” which was a small water wheel that would spin and tinkle when peed on, used to encourage potty training in children. Douglas Engelbart also invented the computer mouse.

© Getty Images

Workers' bathroom breaks -

Throughout history, workers could not take toilet breaks as needed. Car manufacturing mogul Henry Ford even called the digestive system the “disassembly line.” Women who worked at the Jim Beam distillery even had to report when they had their periods, so that bathroom breaks were accounted for.

© Getty Images

Workers' bathroom breaks -

Today, although there are laws about workers' right to use the toilet, most are not clear. In the US, for instance, it was not until 1998 that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) passed a law granting the right to use a bathroom, if it was reasonable to do so at a given time. What “reasonable” actually means has been the subject of many disputes and indeed court cases over the years.

Sources: (History Collection) (Listverse) (History) (NPR) ('The Maritime Engineering Reference Book')

© Getty Images