🧠 The Daily Fact #26

In ancient Rome, laundry was washed using human urine. Public urinals were set up, and the collected urine was sold to laundries because it contains ammonia, an effective cleaning agent. Workers stomped on clothing in vats of diluted urine to remove stains and odors. This practice was so common that the Emperor Vespasian even introduced a "urine tax" on its collection and sale. To this day, the Italian phrase “Pecunia non olet” ("Money doesn’t stink") is attributed to Vespasian's defense of this rather pungent revenue source.