[gpderetta]

Condition variables predate Windows and its predecessor VMS by many years (they do not predate unix itself but certainly they predate pthreads by decades).

In particular pthreads borrowed them from Mesa, but they originally were part of the monitor abstraction designed by Hoare.

So they weren't designed to be a superior alternative to windows events; they might be considered an alternative to events in general but I couldn't easily find any history of the events abstraction.