Remembering Princess Diana

It was the midnight of the 31st of August, 1997, when a car accident occurred somewhere in Pont de l'Alma and one of the casualties is none other than Princess Diana. The year 2017 marks 20 years since the horrifying death of Princess Diana, a turning point that forever changed the world and it might be the ideal time to have a moment of silence to remember the death of a princess that forever changed the world.

Photo: Getty Images

It all began one fateful summer of 1997 when Princess Diana's glitz and glamour catapulted through the ranks following her divorce and she was planning for a trip to Sarajevo to promote the campaign against landmines. In July, she, Prince William, and Prince Harry arrived at St. Tropez as guests of Harrods owner, Mohamed Al Fayed, and his son Dodi. A month later, her affair with Dodi caught the attention of the paparazzi. The two fly from Sardinia for a their night out at Paris. Diana supposed to return home but she and Dodi are caught off-guard by the paparazzi at the Ritz, owned by Fayed.

Such annoyance prompted Dodi to cancel their dinner reservations as they will return to the Ritz for dinner and drive to his apartment in Paris, thus the car chase between them and the press began in nightfall. In an effort to weave off the press, Dodi summoned two cars as decoys leaving from the Ritz front entrance. He and Diana will leave from the back of a Mercedes S280 saloon with Henri Paul, the Ritz's acting head of security, served as their driver.

As midnight struck on the 31st of August, both Diana and Dodi left the Ritz, caught on CCTV. As the pursuit continues at Pont de l'Alma, Paul clips a Fiat and loses control and with no time to hit the brakes, the car hit the 13th pillar, killing both Dodi and the driver while Dodi's bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, badly hurt. Diana was sent to the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital but suffers a cardiac arrest. At around four in the morning, she died.

Following her shocking death, people in Britain held a moment of silence to pay respects to the late Princess Diana while then-Prime Minister Tony Blair draw flak on the press, warning that any editor who uses paparazzi pictures of her has "blood on his hands today," he said.

It is now 2017 and the world still remembers Princess Diana, who will never be forgotten for all the goodwill she committed through her tenure as the Princess of Wales before her tragic death. While conspiracy theories still lurking around about her untimely death, only history will shed light on this tragedy that forever changed the world and in the case of Princess Diana, truth will always prevail throughout the endless waltz of conspiracies that haunt our minds even on the next generation.

Further reading: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/31/death-of-diana-the-week-that-rocked-britain