Contadora has hosted two moments of outsized international significance. In 1979, the deposed Shah of Iran lived in temporary exile on the island while Panama's president Omar Torrijos offered him refuge. The following year, in January 1980, the Shah left for Egypt, where he died six months later.
The island gave its name to a more lasting piece of history when, in 1983, the foreign ministers of Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela met here to begin a diplomatic initiative to end the civil wars tearing through Central America. The resulting framework — known as the Contadora Process — laid groundwork for peace negotiations that eventually contributed to the end of conflicts in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. A small plaque near the island's main settlement marks the location of these meetings.