The Princess Di story revisited. This may bring tears to your eyes

The Honorable Diana Frances Spencer was born on 1 July 1961. She lived with her aristocratic family in a royal estate at Sandringham (with 10 bedrooms!). Her parents divorced when she was seven, and her father, then Lord Althorp, won custody of Diana and her three siblings after a messy battle. When his father died, and he became the 8th Earl Spencer, Diana officially became a Lady. 

Although her father sent her first to a fancy preparatory and then to a boarding school, Diana never paid much attention to her studies -- preferring to focus on sports, music and dance. When she didn't pass the exams necessary to enter college, she went to a finishing school in Switzerland before moving to London to work as a nanny and kindergarten teacher.

Diana had long run with a royal crowd, including Charles's brothers Prince Edward and Prince Andrew, who were friends from the family home in Althorp. In 1977, she and Charles were reintroduced at a pheasant hunt. They kept the relationship secret for a short while, but the voracious British press caught whiff, and soon Diana was being stalked wherever she went. She was shy and innocent and the media loved her. Charles proposed in February 1981 with an 18-carat sapphire ring (surrounded by 14-carats worth of diamonds, of course). 

The world was giddy with the idea of a royal wedding and the details don't disappoint. Diana wore a silk taffeta dress with a 25-foot train. A diamond tiara -- a Spencer family heirloom -- held her veil in place. She carried a bouquet with seven types of flowers, including gardenias, lilies-of-the-valley and orchids. The entire affair was televised globally and hundreds of thousands lined the route from Buckingham Palace to St. Paul's Cathedral to watch her carriage arrive for the ceremony. She was stunning.

Son William, officially known as Prince William Arthur Philip Louis, came a year later, in June 1982 and Prince Henry (aka Harry) in September 1984. Diana was a devoted mother, who loved to be with her boys and resisted the restrained child-rearing royal traditions. 

Life on the inside was not so rosy. Diana was sensitive and emotional and the royal family reportedly had no patience for her needs. Charles, still in love with his old flame Camilla Parker Bowles, was a distant husband. Diana suffered from bouts of intense depression and bulimia, caused in large part by feeling so alone. 

Charles's cheating led to Diana's dalliances, most notably with her boys' riding instructor. In 1992, Buckingham Palace announced their separation. They shared custody of the children, but took up separate residences. In retrospect, no one was shocked. The two didn't share much in common. He was a serious intellectual who loved history, horses and architecture. She liked pop music, celebrity, style and gossip. 

In a 1995 BBC television interview, Diana described her bulimia, adultery and miserable relations with the royal family. The following year, Diana and Charles's marriage was officially dissolved. As mother of a royal heir, Diana remained part of the royal family but lost the Her Royal Highness title. She received millions of dollars and her home in Kensington. 

Even as a young mother, Diana was always interested in offering sympathy and healing to the rest of the world. She embraced AIDS sufferers in the '80s, when people still worried about contracting the disease through casual contact. She visited with lepers and traveled to poverty stricken regions of Africa. After the divorce, she worked with the Red Cross to end the plague of land mines. She even developed a friendship with the most famous humanitarian of modern times, Mother Teresa. 

Diana remained a celebrity and style icon. She auctioned off nearly 80 of the gowns she wore as a royal, with all the proceeds going to charity. She went to the gym, spent time with her sons and started dating. The most public and lasting of the relationships was with Dodi Al-Fayed. 

Dodi's billionaire father owned Harrods and a British football club and Dodi offered Diana the life of a rich and loving playboy. The two holidayed on his yacht and in St. Tropez. Photographers had never stopped snapping photos of Diana and with this new relationship, the intensity increased. 

It was from this intense glare that the couple was trying to escape during a romantic weekend in Paris. They dined at the Ritz Hotel, which is owned by Dodi's father, and dashed into a limo driven by the hotel's acting security manager, Henri Paul. Unfortunately, the paparazzi followed and a high-speed chase ensued. It ended with a bloody crash in the Pont de L'Alma tunnel. All three died. Henri was found to be drunk. Dodi's bodyguard was the only survivor.

The normally reserved Britons let their emotions flow following the news of Diana's death. While Queen Elizabeth II stayed away from Buckingham Palace, the public did not. They flooded the gates with flowers and remembrances and demanded the royal family publicly acknowledge the depth of the loss. Similar memorials rose at Kensington Palace and her family's Althorp estate. 

About three million mourners lined the streets of London to witness the funeral procession as it wound its way to Westminster Abbey. Her sons walked behind, along with their father and Diana's brother, Earl Spencer. Just like her wedding, millions of people also watched on television. Sir Elton John sang to the crowd of political and Hollywood notables, including Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher and Tom Hanks. Diana was buried in a black dress, with a rosary given to her by Mother Teresa, in a quiet and private ceremony on her family's estate.