Under what circumstances is a rape proved?

I'm well aware that in the Islamic history there is a need of 4 witnesses for a rape to be proved. Has that happened before? How? I mean has there ever been a woman who claimed X has raped me and then the prophet said are there witnesses and then 4 witnessed were gathered and then the man got punished? Additionally has there ever been any incident where an alleged rapist got punished regardless of the number of witnesses (e.g. no witnesses were found or there was only 1 witness)? If so when? Why? I'm only interested from the time of the prophet Muhammad until the end of Ali's government