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The Bat Bomb Invention and Other Odd Facts from History and War

Khalid Elhassan May 10, 2020 33 min

28. The Great Empress’ Great Constipation

In her last days, Catherine the Great had been feeling constipated. During a heroic effort to force relief on the toilet, she overstrained herself and suffered a fatal stroke. When her loud gruntings ceased, her maids waiting outside assumed that her majesty had finally found relief.

They started getting nervous, however, as the minutes dragged on without Catherine emerging or summoning them. Eventually, they delicately inquired if all was well. Hearing no answer, they took a peak, and found the Empress dead on the toilet.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.