THE ARCHIVE

Famous meetings in history

Meetings that shaped politics, science and spaceflight. Each entry covers what happened, who was in the room, how the meeting was arranged, and the sources we used — including the parts of the popular story that do not survive them.

2,354

years covered, 336 BCE to 2018

A baroque painting of Alexander the Great standing over Diogenes, who reclines beside his barrel and gestures him aside.

336 BCE

CULTURECorinth

Alexander goes to see Diogenes

The best-known status inversion in antiquity: the man everyone wanted to meet went looking for the one man who did not want to meet him.

Read the full account

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TIMELINE336 BCE–2018, axis broken between 400 and 1000

336 BCEAlexander goes to see DiogenesCorinthCULTURERead the full account

CultureDiplomacyReligionFoundingExplorationScienceSpaceGrey markers are entries still being written

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Notable meetings

Sorted oldest first

01336 BCEAlexander goes to see DiogenesCULTURECorinthEveryone came to congratulate him. One man didn't, so he went to the man.

0241 BCEAntony summons Cleopatra to TarsusDIPLOMACYTarsus, CiliciaHe set the time and place. She turned up on her own terms and made him come to her.

03325The First Council of NicaeaRELIGIONNicaea, Bithynia (İznik, Turkey)Constantine summoned bishops from across the empire and paid their travel on the imperial road system.

041077Henry IV waits at CanossaRELIGIONCanossa, in the ApenninesAn emperor stood outside a castle gate in the snow for three days to get a meeting.

051095The Council of ClermontRELIGIONClermont, AuvergneUrban II preached a sermon outdoors because the crowd would not fit in the church. Nobody wrote it down at the time.

061215King John meets the barons at RunnymedeFOUNDINGRunnymede, between Windsor and StainesHeld in a meadow because neither side would set foot inside the other's castle.

071275Marco Polo reaches Kublai KhanEXPLORATIONShangdu and DaduThree and a half years of travel for a meeting we only know about because one of them wrote it up in a Genoese prison.

081519Cortés meets MoctezumaEXPLORATIONThe causeway into TenochtitlanTwo heads of state met on a raised road over a lake, each with an interpreter neither of them could check.

091520The Field of the Cloth of GoldDIPLOMACYBalinghem, between Guînes and ArdresTwo kings spent a fortune on a summit whose only agreed outcome was how impressive it had been.

101521Luther at the Diet of WormsRELIGIONWorms, on the RhineHe was summoned to recant. He asked for a day to think about it, came back, and did not.

111532Pizarro and Atahualpa at CajamarcaEXPLORATIONCajamarca, in the northern AndesAn invitation to talk, accepted, in a walled square that had been chosen for the ambush.

121633Galileo before the InquisitionSCIENCEThe Holy Office, RomeFour hearings over ten weeks, turning on what exactly he had been told in a meeting eleven years earlier.

Retold from published records and standard references, listed at the foot of every entry.

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