Tesla's remote controlled boat

Famed inventor Nikola Tesla demonstrated a remote-controlled boat in 1898, an event some consider the birth of robotics. The boat, which operated in a specially built tank at an electrical exhibit in New York, was controlled by radio and operated on an internal battery. At the event, Tesla declared the boat is the "first of a race of robots, mechanical men which will do the laborious work of the human race," according to PBS.