An Event to Remember.

By Richard Stengel / Managing Editor

The TIME 100 dinner, which we held May 8 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, is like a TIME 100 issue come to life: eclectic, electric, global. The TIME 100 surveys the most influential people in the world, and we invited those from this year's list, as well as honorees from past years, to join us for an evening of music and tributes, and to mingle with extraordinary people from a range of fields.

Youssou N'Dour, the great Senegalese singer and political activist, started off the evening with a set of remarkable songs, culminating in a lyrical ode to Africa. Jimmy Wales, inventor of Wikipedia, met with Richard Dawkins, the biologist and outspoken atheist, to explain why Dawkins' attempts to edit Wikipedia entries kept being rejected. Philip Rosedale, creator of the popular Second Life, a virtual world online, crisscrossed the cocktail floor in search of Suzanne Vega, the noted singer, whom he had met on Second Life but never in person. Each table was a microcosm of the TIME 100 issue, with leaders, scientists and entrepreneurs joining in conversation.

Because the people in the room had influenced so many of us, we asked some honorees to talk about who had most influenced them. Michael Bloomberg, the innovative mayor of New York, paid tribute to Red Auerbach, the great coach of the Boston Celtics in the 1950s and 1960s who broke the color bar in the NBA. Elizabeth Edwards, the courageous wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, spoke movingly about her cancer, saying she accepted the TIME 100 honor "only as a representative of all the men and women who are facing diagnoses like mine, and who continue to fight." NBC News anchor Brian Williams spoke of his heroes of broadcast journalism, Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer. Amr Khaled, the televangelist from Egypt, spoke passionately about young Islamic men and women who want peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world, and asked us to reach out our hands to them. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke of how astronomer Carl Sagan had generously offered his time and advice when Tyson was just a 17-year-old from the Bronx. Richard Branson talked about how the tolerance and humor of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu could help heal the world's divisions.

And then there were the heroes. U.S. Army Captain Timothy Gittins met Wesley Autrey, the man who famously saved a stranger who had fallen onto New York City subway tracks. They acknowledged each other's bravery. "I'm just doing my job. You went above and beyond," said Gittins. "I just saved one guy. You faced enemies who had guns," Autrey responded. The evening finished with pop star John Mayer singing three stirring songs, the last one about the future of his generation.

Richard Stengel, MANAGING EDITOR

A view of the park In the spectacular Allen Room, the dinner guests assembled

Youssou N'Dour--one of this year's 100--played a spellbinding set to start off the dinner

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger graced the event

John Mayer, with America Ferrera, closed the evening

Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust, TIME's Ed McCarrick, financier Stephen Schwarzman, Time Inc. ceo Ann Moore

Presidential hopeful John Edwards watches his wife Elizabeth make a toast

Philip Rosedale created alternate reality Second Life

Theoretical physicist Lisa Randall works at Harvard

Virgin founder Richard Branson, Time Warner ceo Richard Parsons and Gayle King, editor of O magazine

Actress and martial-arts star Ziyi Zhang

Cate Blanchett, class of '07, with TIME managing editor Rick Stengel

Author Malcolm Gladwell and film producer Brian Grazer

Time Warner COO Jeffrey Bewkes

Michael J. Fox, this year both a TIME 100 honoree and author, with wife Tracy Pollan

Highly decorated U.S. Army Captain Timothy Gittins dressed for the night

A 2005 Builder & Titan, Martha Stewart

Tina Fey, of SNL fame, with NBC's Brian Williams

John Mayer, one of the 100 this year, performs

Today show's Matt Lauer with Wesley Autrey, one of this year's 100

Author Rhonda Byrne is happily sharing The Secret

John Huey, Time Inc. editor-in-chief, with New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg

Chess grand master and activist Garry Kasparov with his wife Dasha