When was the flush toilet invented?

Sir John Harington, a godson of Queen Elizabeth I, built a flushing water closet called the Ajax at his home near Bath and installed one for the queen. His design did not catch on widely at the time. In 1775 Scottish watchmaker Alexander Cumming patented a toilet with an S-shaped trap, which held water to block sewer smells, a key feature still used today. Later inventors, including Joseph Bramah and Thomas Crapper, improved the mechanisms in the 18th and 19th centuries. Flush toilets spread widely as cities built modern sewer systems in the late 1800s.