Barack Obama and Raúl Castro’s strange greeting is nothing new: saying hello to a fellow head of state is clearly more difficult than it looks

If you haven’t already watched the clip of Obama and President Raúl Castro’s disastrous handshake at the end of their historic meeting in Cuba on Monday, you should. It was as if Castro wanted Obama to declare Obama the winner in a boxing match that he did not want to win: the Cuban president held Obama’s hand up above his head, but Obama let it go limp and left it hanging in Castro’s hand. It’s now been hailed as “the most awkward handshake in history”, but I don’t know about that. History is full of awkward greetings between world leaders. Here are six more.

2015: John Kerry fumbles a French kiss with François Hollande

Facebook Twitter Pinterest You must remember this: une bise is just une bise. Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

“My visit to France is basically to share a big hug for Paris,” said the US secretary of state, John Kerry, on his way to visit President François Hollande in the aftermath of the Paris attacks. And that’s what he did, sort of. When Kerry arrived in Paris, he rushed to warmly embrace the French president, but when Hollande went to give Kerry a typical French greeting (une bise), Kerry fumbled – and for a moment it looked like the two men were about to start french kissing for real.

2014: Xi Jinping meets Shinzo Abe for the first time

This might have been more awkward than Obama v Castro. At a Pacific summit in 2014, the leaders of Japan and China met in person for the first time in two years, following a series of bitter disputes. But from the frostiness of the exchange, maybe it was too soon. China’s president, Xi Jinping, greeted the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, with a layer of ice that Val Kilmer would have been proud of in Top Gun. Abe’s face was a vision of chagrin.

2006: George W Bush gives Angela Merkel a shoulder rub

Unhand that woman. Photograph: YouTube

You can just hear Bush saying: “Loosen up, Angie, it’s only a G8 summit! Heh heh heh.” At the 2006 summit in St Petersburg, George Bush was captured giving Germany’s leader a quick back rub. Merkel clearly was not enjoying the massage, and flung her hands up to stop him. The five-second video clip quickly went viral and was mashed up with Ludacris’s Get Back and the Police’s Message in a Bottle.

1992: George HW Bush vomits on Japan’s Kiichi Miyazawa

Facebook Twitter Pinterest In my country this is a compliment.

Just a touch of the “stomach flu”, apparently caused President Bush to be sick during his state dinner with the Japanese prime minister, Kiichi Miyazawa. According to the New York Times, Miyazawa cradled Bush’s head until he was strong enough to get up on his own. It was a sort of beautifully human moment shared by two of the most powerful men in the world, but on the other hand, the president’s puke definitely got on Miyazawa’s lap.

1975: Gerald Ford falls down steps of Air Force One in Austria

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The man who fell to Earth.

I really like President Ford’s recovery after this one. (One of many stumbles, attributable to an old football injury, that provided Chevy Chase with all the material he’d need for his famous impersonation on Saturday Night Live). After tumbling down the stairs from the plane, he pops up and extends his hand to the Austrian chancellor, Bruno Kreisky, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.