28 August 2017

History for the day: 1996: Charles and Diana divorce

History.com has this for 28 August:

After four years of separation, Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, and his wife, Princess Diana, formally divorced.
On 29 July 1981, nearly one billion television viewers in 74 countries tuned in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher. Married in a grand ceremony at St. Paul’s Cathedral in the presence of nearly three thousand guests, the couple’s romance was, for the moment, the envy of the world. Their first child, Prince William, was born in 1982, and their second, Prince Harry, in 1984.
Before long, however, the fairy tale couple grew apart, an experience that was particularly painful under the ubiquitous eyes of the world’s tabloid media. Diana and Charles announced their separation in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties. In August of 1996, two months after Queen Elizabeth II urged the couple to divorce, the prince and princess reached a final agreement. In exchange for a generous settlement, and the right to retain her apartments at Kensington Palace and her title of Princess of WalesDiana agreed to relinquish the title of Her Royal Highness and any future claims to the British throne.
In the year following the divorce, the popular princess seemed well on her way to achieving her dream of becoming “a queen in people’s hearts,” but, on 31 August, 1997, she was killed with her companion Dodi Fayed in a car accident in Paris. An investigation conducted by the French police concluded that the driver, who also died in the crash, was heavily intoxicated and caused the accident while trying to escape the paparazzi photographers who consistently tailed Diana during any public outing:
Prince Charles married his longtime (and much less pretty) mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, on 9 April 2005.
Rico says it was a big mistake on Diana's part...

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