THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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1996
Month Day
August 28

Charles and Diana divorce

After four years of separation, Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, and his wife, Princess Diana, formally divorce.

On July 29, 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 2,650 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.

READ MORE: How Prince Charles and Lady Diana's Wedding Became a Global Event

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 a separation in 1992, though they continued to carry out their royal duties. In August 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 Wales,” Diana agreed to relinquish the title of “Her Royal Highness” and any future claims to the British throne.

READ MORE: The Hidden Dark Side of Charles and Diana’s Relationship

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 August 31, 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 mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles, on April 9, 2005.

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ALSO ON THIS DAY

US Politics
1968

Protests at Democratic National Convention in Chicago

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Emmett Till
Black History
1955

Emmett Till is murdered

On August 28, 1955, while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His assailants—the white woman’s husband and her brother—made Emmett ...read more

Africa
1879

Zulu king captured

King Cetshwayo, the last great ruler of Zululand, is captured by the British following his defeat in the British-Zulu War. He was subsequently sent into exile. Cetshwayo’s defiance of British rule in southern Africa led to Britain’s invasion of Zululand in 1879. In 1843, Britain ...read more

Black History
1963

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the African American civil rights movement reaches its high-water mark when Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks to about 250,000 people attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The demonstrators–Black and white, ...read more

World War II
1941

Mass slaughter in Ukraine

On August 28, 1941, more than 23,000 Hungarian Jews are murdered by the Gestapo in occupied Ukraine. The German invasion of the Soviet Union had advanced to the point of mass air raids on Moscow and the occupation of parts of Ukraine. On August 26, Hitler displayed the joys of ...read more

U.S. Presidents
1917

President Woodrow Wilson picketed by women suffragists

On August 28, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson is picketed by woman's suffragists in front of the White House, who demand that he support an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee women the right to vote. Wilson had a history of lukewarm support for women’s suffrage, ...read more

Westward Expansion
1869

Three leave Powell’s Grand Canyon expedition

Convinced they will have a better chance surviving the desert than the raging rapids that lay ahead, three men leave John Wesley Powell’s expedition through the Grand Canyon and scale the cliffs to the plateau above. Though it turned out the men had made a serious mistake, they ...read more

Art, Literature, and Film History
1963

Mahalia Jackson, the Queen of Gospel, puts her stamp on the March on Washington

If the legendary gospel vocalist Mahalia Jackson had been somewhere other than the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, her place in history would still have been assured purely on the basis of her musical legacy. But it is almost impossible to imagine Mahalia ...read more

Germany
1988

Air-show accident burns spectators

An air show involving military jets at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany turns tragic on August 28, 1988 when three jets collide in mid-air and fall into the crowd. Sixty-nine of the 100,000 spectators died and hundreds more were injured. Toward the end of the NATO-sponsored show ...read more

Crime
1990

Murdered students are discovered at the University of Florida

The bodies of Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada are discovered at the Gatorwood Apartments, near the campus of the University of Florida. Their murders came two days after the discovery that three young female students had been killed and mutilated in two separate locations near ...read more

Religion
1774

St. Elizabeth born in New York City

Elizabeth Ann Bayley is born in New York City on August 28, 1774. She went on to found the first Catholic school and the first female apostolic community in the United States. She was also the first American-born saint beatified by the Roman Catholic Church. Elizabeth Ann Bayley ...read more