Jefferson moves dinner to sunset for a fasting envoy

Hosting Tunisian envoy Sidi Soliman Mellimelli during Ramadan, President Jefferson shifts the White House dinner from half past three to 'precisely at sunset', often described as the first White House iftar.

Senator John Quincy Adams dined at the table that evening and recorded the accommodation in his diary: dinner waited because 'the Turks fast while the sun is above the horizon.'