Today in Labor History February 11, 1938: BBC Television produced the world's first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Čapek play R.U.R. Čapek coined the term "robot,” deriving it from the Czech word for forced labor by Serfs. R.U.R. is an archetype for many of the science fiction stories and films that followed, like Bladerunner, West World and Terminator, and others about robots, replicants and hosts that rebel against humans. However, “R.U.R.,” like Čapek’s 1936 novel “War with the Newts,” is also a satirical critique of totalitarianism, which was on the rise in Europe at the time he wrote the play.
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