January 25th – On this day in geek history in 1921 the play R.U.R. debuted at the National Theater in Prague. Written by Karel Capek R.U.R. stands for ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’ and it was the first use of the word ‘robot’ to describe an artificial being.
the robots in Capek’s play were made of chemicals, not the the cybermen we’re used. But the basic plot of the play is similar to robot sci-fi stories: the robots become self-aware, they rise up against their human creators, mass hysteria, etc.
