Has anyone historically accepted and tried Allah's challenge?

The Qur'an challenges people to bring something similar to it. All of the people I know including myself read these verses and think "then this is a divine book, because nobody can bring something similar". Do we have any historical record of a person or group actually accepting that challenge, spending time and energy on it, (and failing of course) after delivering their writings which have persisted till now. Please note that I've seen this question already: https://islam.stackexchange.com/questions/20245/challenge-of-the-quran My question is not about **why** but about historical evidence.