Historic Recurrence - Striking Similarity

One of the paradigms of recurrence thinking identified by G.W. Trompf involves "the isolation of any two specific events which bear a very striking similarity".

Such events need not be separated remotely in time. Indeed, historians of science and technology such as Robert K. Merton and Harriet Zuckerman have concluded that multiple independent identical discoveries, carried out simultaneously or very nearly so by more than one researcher or group of researchers, are much more the rule than the exception.

Similar patterns have also been found in the social sciences and humanities.

In the film world, there are many instances of two or more films with similar plots or themes having been released within a close period of time.

British novelist Martin Amis observes that recurring patterns of imperial ascendance-and-decline simultaneously are mirrored in, and inform, the novel:

novels seem to follow the political power. In the 19th century, when England ruled the earth, the novels were huge and all-embracing and tried to express what the whole society was. The English novel at that point was about 225 pages long and about career setbacks or marriage setbacks. Uncannily, that power passed to the United States after the war, and started to write these huge novels. he ideology level-ism actually sweetened the pill of decline. It was saying, "You haven't got an empire anymore, but you shouldn't have had an empire in the first place. We don't like empires." It sort of soothed our brow. There's no great fury about decline in England. They're not going to be docile and stoic like we were. A fair amount of illusion.

Below are three examples of strikingly similar historic recurrence, drawn from general history.