If you tie shoelaces in any 3-by-3 pattern, there will always be three intersections of the lacing aligned on a straight line. That is a corollary of the Pappus's Hexagon Theorem.
The shoelace was patented in 1790 by an Englishman named Harvey Kennedy.
I would very much like this to be true and all previous evidence of shoelaces just a clever hoax.
Alan's Shoelace Site
Now I am done with shoelaces