| c. 2800 bc | Scotland | Earliest known indoor toilets are built. |
| c. 2700 bc | Indus Valley | Indoor plumbing with earthen pipes appears. |
| 616 bc | Rome | The Cloaca Maxima, a large city sewer system, is built. |
| c. 300 bc | Athens | Public latrines appear; human waste is used to fertilize crops and orchards outside of city limits. |
| 589 | China | Toilet paper appears. |
| 1366 | Paris | City of Paris orders butchers to dispose of their animal excrement outside the city. |
| 1388 | London | British Parliament prohibits disposal of human waste into ditches, rivers, and other bodies of water. |
| 1596 | London | The “Ajax,” precursor to the modern flush toilet, is constructed in England, and Queen Elizabeth I installs one in her Richmond Palace. |
| 1805 | Paris | Napoleon Bonaparte extends and modernizes the first vaulted sewer network. |
| 1858 | London | Summer heat and the smell of untreated sewage in the Thames causes the “Great Stink,” an event that leads Parliament to commission the construction of an extensive underground sewage system almost one hundred miles in length. |
| 1885 | Washington, DC | The first concrete sewer walls are installed in the United States. |
| 1900 | Chicago | The Sanitary and Ship Canal opens, reversing the flow of the Chicago River in order to carry the city’s sewage away from Lake Michigan. |
| 1980 | United States | Automatic flush toilets appear in public restrooms. |
| 1992 | Guadalajara | Gasoline explosions in the sewer system cause extensive damage and kill at least 210 people. |
