This evening, President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden will be joined in the White House’s East Room by more than two hundred government dignitaries, cultural figures and other guests for a White House state dinner to honor Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Mrs. Yuko Kishida of Japan.

It’s the latest in a series of more than 300 dinners that have become a key part of White House history − and an important tool of American diplomacy.

These dinners, where the president and first lady honor a visiting head of state and their spouse, are more than living expressions of goodwill and hospitality. Leaders can build friendships as they break bread together, and alliances can grow stronger. Global power and influence are on display − and carefully crafted toasts are often part of diplomatic conversations also playing out in meetings and across oceans.

In the strictest sense, “state dinners” now refer to formal affairs for a visiting head of state. But when Washington D.C.’s political society was smaller and evolving, the term was used to describe smaller winter social gatherings to honor members of Congress and the Supreme Court (and sometimes diplomats or visiting royalty).

Although the new nation was more populist and rough-hewn than its European forebears, these dinners borrowed old-world rank and protocol, with guests marching in unison to seats arranged by diplomatic rank. The president was served first − and no one could rise to leave the table before he did. (When the German ambassador suggested that the brother of the Kaiser walk first into a 1902 dinner held in his honor, President Theodore Roosevelt rebuffed him: “No person living precedes the president of the United States in the White House.”)

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The first state dinner to honor a foreign head of state was held by President Ulysses Grant in 1874 for King David Kalakaua, monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, who was visiting to secure a tariff treaty. Joined by the speaker of the House, the chief justice and several cabinet members, the king had royal food testers sample each of the 20-plus courses.

In the 19th century, White House formal dinners in the State Dining Room could only hold 50 people at a long I-shaped table flanked by fireplaces. Theodore Roosevelt transformed the room, removing a staircase and installing oak woodwork carved with moose, elk and buffalo heads, pedestal........

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