I am very interested in patterns and practices in software architecture. However, I believe that one can find patterns practically everywhere.

Different patterns have been described since ancient times. XX century brought us quite a few significant works on patterns as well. One of my favorite books is "Morphology of the Folktale" written by Vladimir Propp and published in 1928. One may consider it too simplistic but don't forget that this was one of the first books that described patterns in folklore. The term "pattern" was not used yet. Only in 1977 Christopher Alexander with coauthors coined the term "pattern" in the first article on patterns in architecture. Works of Christopher Alexander inspired other authors to research patterns. In 1995 the Gang of Four (well, not the Chinese one:) applied patterns to the area of object-oriented software design.

Being a solutions architect, I realize that the world of patterns is much bigger than software and even than architecture.