For many of us, the bathroom is a little sanctuary where we can think, day‑dream, or even beat our high score on Candy Crush. While most of the time we’re simply scrolling through our phones or humming in the shower, history shows that some truly unforgettable moments have unfolded behind the tiles. Below, we count down ten of the most remarkable bathroom‑bound happenings, ranging from mythic murders to scientific epiphanies.
10 The Death Of Agamemnon
We kick things off with a tale that feels more like legend than recorded history: the murder of Agamemnon. Immortalized in Homer’s epic, Agamemnon was the Mycenaean king who led the Greeks to victory in the Trojan War. After Troy fell, he sailed home in triumph, only to discover that his wife, Clytemnestra, had taken a lover named Aegisthus. The drama that followed is straight out of a tragedy.
According to the mythic tradition, Agamemnon had once sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to appease Artemis, a decision that earned him a permanent spot on his wife’s grievance list. While Clytemnestra may have initially hoped the war would claim his life, his safe return forced her hand. In some versions, Aegisthus leads a band of assassins to the palace; in others, Clytemnestra herself takes a dagger and slashes her husband while he is bathing, turning a private ritual into his final, fatal plunge.
9 The Political Career Of John Glenn
John Glenn, the iconic astronaut who became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962, seemed destined for a second career in the Senate. After his historic flight, the nation adored him, and he announced his candidacy for Ohio’s U.S. Senate seat in January 1964. But a routine bathroom routine turned disastrous.
Just a month after declaring his run, Glenn slipped on the slick surface of his bathtub, hitting his head hard enough to cause a concussion and inner‑ear damage. The injury left him unable to campaign, and feeling it would be unfair to ask voters to support a candidate who couldn’t actively canvass, he withdrew from the race. This tumble delayed his political ambitions by a full decade, and he finally secured a Senate seat only in 1974.
8 The Assassination Of Edmund Ironside
Next on the list is a gruesome episode from early 11th‑century England. King Edmund II, known as “Ironside” for his ferocious resistance against the Danish invader Cnut, ruled for a fleeting six months in 1016. His reign ended not on the battlefield but in a private latrine.
Historian Henry of Huntingdon recounts that an enemy ealdorman’s son, Edric, slipped into the castle’s privy pit and hid beneath the throne. When Edmund entered to answer nature’s call, Edric thrust a weapon upward, stabbing the king multiple times. The act was so shocking that Cnut, despite being a conqueror, ordered Edric’s decapitation and displayed his head atop the Tower of London’s highest battlement as a grim warning.
7 The Work Of Edmond Rostand
Not every bathroom story ends in bloodshed. French playwright Edmond Rostand, famed for his swashbuckling drama “Cyrano de Bergerac,” found his creative sweet spot soaking in a tub. While Benjamin Franklin famously took long baths to mull over inventions, Rostand used his own bathroom as a writer’s retreat.
Rostand faced two perennial problems: interruptions from friends and the social faux pas of refusing visitors. By choosing the bathtub as his office, he could work uninterrupted—no one would dare demand a return visit from a man already waist‑deep in water. This clever workaround let him focus on his verses without the usual social friction.
6 The Demise Of Elagabalus
Elagabalus, often ranked among Rome’s most infamous emperors, met his end in a setting as unglamorous as his reign. His own grandmother, Julia Maesa, conspired against him, preferring his cousin Severus Alexander as heir. When Elagabalus tried to cling to power, the Praetorian Guard, fed up with his excesses, turned violent.
During the chaos, Elagabalus attempted to hide in a latrine, hoping the chaos would pass unnoticed. The Guard, however, dragged him out, beheaded him, and displayed his severed head alongside his mother’s. Their bodies were stripped, dragged through the city, and ultimately discarded—his mother’s remains tossed aside, his own cast into a river. A grim finale for a ruler whose eccentricities were legendary.
5 The End Of King Haakon’s Reign
Norway’s beloved monarch, King Haakon VII, steered his nation through half a century of change from 1905 to 1957. Yet his storied reign concluded with a rather undignified bathroom mishap.
In 1955, just shy of his 83rd birthday, Haakon suffered a severe fall while navigating his bathroom. Though the accident didn’t kill him outright, it left him permanently wheelchair‑bound. Stripped of his once‑active lifestyle—he’d been an avid skier—he grew reclusive, delegating ceremonial duties to his son, Crown Prince Olav, until his death two years later.
4 The Assassination Of Jean‑Paul Marat
Jean‑Paul Marat, a fiery voice of the French Revolution and a leading Jacobin, met his demise while immersed in the very bath he used to soothe a chronic skin condition. On July 13, 1793, a young woman named Charlotte Corday entered his apartment, claiming to carry intelligence about fellow Girondins.
Marat, perched in his tub with pen and paper, began recording Corday’s information. In a swift, brutal motion, she produced a kitchen knife and thrust it into his chest. As his fiancée Simonne rushed in, Marat’s final words—“Help me, my beloved”—were already echoing in the steam‑filled room. Corday was captured moments later and met the guillotine a few days thereafter.
3 The Medical Breakthrough Of King George II
On the morning of October 25, 1760, King George II rose, enjoyed his customary chocolate, and then, as his German valet later recounted, slipped into a small “closet” that served as his private lavatory. The valet heard a thud and found the monarch dead on the floor.
While the king’s untimely death left the British throne vacant, his physician, Frank Nicholls, seized a scientific opportunity. By examining the corpse, Nicholls produced the first clear description of an aortic dissection, noting a transverse fissure in the aorta and massive pericardial blood. This post‑mortem insight sparked centuries‑long medical research, eventually leading to modern surgical interventions for the condition.
2 The Louisiana Purchase
One of the most consequential diplomatic deals in world history—the Louisiana Purchase—was, according to the memoirs of Napoleon’s brother Lucien, negotiated while Napoleon himself was taking a bath.
Lucien recounts that in 1803, Napoleon summoned his siblings to the Tuileries Palace, only to be found lounging in a tub. When his brother Joseph expressed reservations about selling the massive North American territory, Napoleon sulked, splashing water over them in a childish display of irritation. The argument escalated, with Lucien warning, “If I were not your brother, I would be your enemy,” prompting Napoleon to smash a snuff box in frustration. The bath‑time showdown ultimately culminated in the sale of the Louisiana territory to the United States.
1 The Eureka Moment
When it comes to bathroom breakthroughs, none rivals Archimedes’ legendary “Eureka!” episode. King Hieron II of Syracuse commissioned a solid gold crown, suspecting the goldsmith might have swindled him by mixing in silver.
Tasked with proving the crown’s purity, Archimedes stepped into his bathtub and noticed that the water level rose as he submerged himself. He realized that the volume of water displaced matched the volume of his body, leading him to formulate the principle of buoyancy. Overjoyed, he allegedly sprinted through the streets of Syracuse naked, shouting “Eureka!” after confirming that the crown’s density differed from that of pure gold.
The experiment was straightforward: if the crown were truly gold, it would displace the same volume as a pure‑gold bar of equal mass. A lighter alloy would cause a different water displacement, confirming the deception. Archimedes’ insight exposed the goldsmith’s fraud and cemented a foundational concept in physics.
Modern scholarship, however, doubts the literal truth of this tale. The earliest written account appears centuries later in Vitruvius’ works, and Archimedes himself never recorded the incident. Nonetheless, the story endures as a vivid illustration of how a quiet moment in the bathroom can spark world‑changing ideas.