Yes, there has been at least one other such attempt recently, by Bob Gibbs.
I seem to recall dems did the same thing early in Trump's presidency (long before the two that actually passed the House and went to trial in the Senate).
Agreed that the Dems flailed their arms and submitted articles of impeachment on DJT early on, but again, that's all political theater. What got the thing jumpstarted for the Dems was the "perfect" phone call between Trump and the president of Ukraine - forgot his name. They jumped on it because of the election and thought they could use it to destroy Trump. It was partly successful - they impeached him, but failed to convict.
The biggest element was the lame stream media's complete news blackout on Hunter Biden's laptop and the influence peddling that Gropey Joe was into AND, let us not forget, the rigged election itself.