Language & WorldFact
The word "robot" was invented in Prague in 1920.
Karel Čapek's 1920 play R.U.R. ("Rossum's Universal Robots") gave the world the word; it premiered on 2 January 1921 in Hradec Králové. His brother Josef, a painter, actually coined it. It comes from Czech "robota", the forced labour serfs owed their lords, related to "rab", slave. By 1923 the play had been translated into 30 languages.
Useful: A word that now sounds like the future originally meant forced labour.
Source: en.wikipedia.org