Historic recurrence is the repetition of similar events in
history. The concept of historic recurrence has variously been applied to the overall
history of the world (e.g., to the rises and falls of
empires), to repetitive patterns in the history of a given
polity, and to any two specific events which bear a striking similarity. Hypothetically, in the extreme, the concept of historic recurrence assumes the form of the
Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, which has been written about in various forms since
antiquity and was described in the 19th century by
Heinrich Heine and
Friedrich Nietzsche.