In this report some phenomena and events in the history of industrial robots have been described. The prerequisites are mainly the early automation in the industry, together with the playful automatons. With the computer and later on the integrated circuit, it was possible to develop the first industrial robots. The first robots were used for simple tasks as pick and place, since they had no external sensing. They replaced humans in monotonous, repetitive, heavy and dangerous tasks. When the robots could manage both a more complex motion, but also had external sensor capacity, more complex applications followed, like welding, grinding, deburring and assembly. The usage of industrial robots can nowadays,roughly speaking, be divided into three different groups; materialhandling, process operations and assembly. In general, industrial robots are used to reduce costs, increase productivity, improve product quality and eliminate harmful tasks. These areas represent the main factors resulting in the spread of robotics technology in a wider and wider range of applications in manufacturing industry. However, introducing robots do not solve all problems. Automation, productivity, employment are complex questions and the connections between robots and labour can be discussed much more.