I recently shared a string of historical factoids related to robot fighting on Twitter. As they say, those that do not study the history of robot fighting, are doomed to repeat it. And when it comes to robot fighting, you do NOT want to repeat it.

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Historical trivia – robot fighting was invented by the Scots in the 1840s.

Queen Victoria referred to them as Her Majesty’s Loyal Pugilists (Mechanical.) FACT!

On a related note, the British Indian Army was founded in 1857 so Highland regiments could train and deploy Gurkha robot-fighters in Asia.

Their most notable actions, prior to WWI, were during the 1900 Boxer Robot Rebellion in China. The campaign medal’s ribbon is a bar code (argued the first) that decodes as the date of the rebellion. It has only been issued 15 times.

The Victoria Cross of Meritorious Deconstruction has only been issued twice; Sgt. Major Alison Gallant of The Informatic Highlanders (St. Andrews) and Lt./Jamedar Mathebar Thapa of the BIA.The two fought together against a two-story German Unschlagbarenroboter at Passchendaele. The medals were posthumous.

The Guinness World Record for robot fighting is held by Dutch-Canadian John Hessels – 134 robots in one match at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1982. There is an urban legend that Mr. Roboto by Styx was inspired by Hessels’ fight. Dennis DeYoung was in attendance at MLG that night however.