Twisted Python and Ruby's EventMachine would both be examples of evented IO frameworks that predate Node.js's popularity, and possibly even its development.
I think even C++ had one.
I think even C++ had one.
i have a bit of experience with twisted and must say it's pretty world class. it has great streaming APIs, really convenient APIs for working with processes, in addition to a solid networking library where you can either build your own protocols or use existing ones.
to say "it failed at scale" is ridiculous. i can point to a number of institutions with plenty of twisted code in production, moving hundreds of GB a day of data.
the only reason it would seem "failed" or "obscure" is that node.js has a huge fad aspect to it where people blog about and evangelize it constantly. most things in software don't have a fraction of the hype or exposure but that's not really due to technical shortcomings or lack of use.
Twisted is world class; the fact that it essentially failed to escape its niche is one of the bits of evidence I submit for saying this style doesn't have some immense reservoir of success left to tap. Twisted basically tapped it, in a nicer language for what it is doing that Javascript is, and it's not enough to take the world by storm, in terms of solving the concurrency problem. Use it if it's the best solution, by all means, though. It's quality stuff.
twisted made a few innovations (Deferred, @inlineCallbacks, push/pull producer API) but all in all select loops are not new technology.
node is getting way too much credit if you ask me, but i think it's mostly because it's exposed a generally naive class of programmers (javascript coders) to a different paradigm. C programmers have known about select() for the last 30 years.