Presidential nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are expected to appear together at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in Manhattan on Thursday night.

The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, commonly known as the Al Smith Dinner, is an annual white tie fundraiser for Catholic charities supporting needy children held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York on the third Thursday of October. It is organized by the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation in honor of former New York Governor Al Smith, the first Catholic presidential candidate. The dinner is hosted by the archbishop of New York (as of 2016, Cardinal Timothy Dolan).

Alfred E. Smith in 1928.
The first dinner was in 1945, the year after Al Smith’s death. It is generally the last event at which the two U.S. presidential candidates share a stage before the election.[1] Apart from presidential candidates, keynote speakers have included Clare Boothe Luce, Bob Hope, Henry Kissinger, Tom Brokaw, Tony Blair, and many other prominent figures in government, business, the media, and entertainment.