"I'd like to be a queen in people's hearts but
I don't see myself being queen of this country."
~Princess Diana
Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961 to Viscount and
Viscountess Althorp of Sardingham, England... She was Althorps' fourth
child, following 2 healthy sisters and a boy who died within hours from
severe birth defects... She also had a baby brother, Charles (Today 9th
Earl Spencer).
.
She started dating with Charles, Prince of Wales, meeting with
him for the first time in her adult life when she was seventeen, but she
started her relationship with Charles, who was her 12 years elder, when
she was nineteen...
.
On February 24, 1981, they announced their engagement, and she
instantly became a major target for a breed of freelance press photographers,
known as "Paparazzi". Diana married to Charles on July 29, 1981... at St.
Paul's
Cathedral in London... The wedding was watched live by 750 million
people around the world.
.
On June 21, 1982 couple's first child was born... Prince William,
also known as Wills... After this Diana, with the stress she went into
in this loveless marriage, started to show the signs of depression... She
became Bulimic (an eating disorder), and attempted suicide several times...
As she later said... Nobody in the royal family was helping her out, her
husband was even more deep into his relationship with Camilla... around
this time, on September 15, 1984, couple's second child was born: Prince
Harry. Their marriage started to deteriorate and so did the ties
between Diana and her in-laws. Her children were the sole ties that kept
her alive and bond her to life. Their marriage was near ending.
.
Meanwhile, Diana found kind of found her way out of the life
of the royal family... Thanks to her constant want to help needy, sick,
and less fortunate. She was dedicated to charities, sick children, cancer
and AIDS patients. She became one of the most prominent figure of all times,
not just because she was a Princess, or had lots of external beauty.
But because of the goodness of heart...
.
In August of 1996, the divorce was finalized. She got a 5-bedroom
apartment in Kensington Palace, and agreed to a sum of $27,000,000. And
also, the issue she was most concerned about, custody of her beloved sons.
She got to see them as much as Charles could.
.
She continued to work for AIDS and cancer charities, paralized
and sick children, drug addicts, and maybe her
favorite charity , landmine victims, and banning the production
of landmines.
.
She visited Angola in January of 1997. She wrote, produced,
and narrated an anti-landmine TV program, together with The Red Cross.She
visited the United States for the last time in June, and met once again
with Mother Teresa, who died less then a week after Diana. Diana used to
say that she was the main inspiration for her work for good causes. She
went to Gianni Versace's funeral in July.
.
The summer of 1997 was maybe one of the best summers she had.
She went vacationing with the Fayeds. People eventually learned that she
had a new boyfriend: Dodi Al-Fayed, with whom she spent her last vacation
(along
with her sons). Some friends of her say that these were some
of the happiest days of her life. At some point, she cut her vacation in
half and went to Bosnia for her anti landmine campaign. She visited people
maimed by landmines, and the graves of those who were killed by them...
.
Her sons went back to England, to spent the last week before
the school with the rest of the royal family. That was the last time she
saw them.
.
Before Diana was to return to England to see her sons, she and
Dodi had dinner in the Ritz restuarant/hotel in Paris. As they left they
started to attract the attention of the paparazzi who followed their car,
causing them to crash in the DeAlma Tunnel. Dodi and the driver were killed
instantly. The bodyguard was saved, but Diana died 4 hours later in a nearby
hospital suffering from severe internal bleeding.
