It's a long-running joke that The Simpsons seems to have an uncanny ability to predict the future. From the Superbowl to the Trump presidency, it often seems like they have somebody on the writing team who's a psychic.
This isn't the only way in which the show seems to occupy a strange place in time, though. If we look in the right places, it seems like we can find traces of their most iconic characters in the past as well. In a thread begun by @CSMFHT, people pointed out all the instances of both ancient and more recent art that bears a remarkable resemblance to characters that we know so well, plus a couple of others from alternative cartoons.
While these examples may not exactly have been fate, they are definitely an interesting comparison to make. Who knows, maybe there were people back in history that knew about something that we would only learn with the passing of time.
