1.2082664-1853776713
** FILE ** Police take away the car in which Diana, Princess of Wales, died in this Sunday, Aug. 31, 1997 file photo taken in Paris, the car crash also killed her companion Dodi Fayed and the chauffeur. Princess Diana wrote in a letter months before her death that she feared someone was planning to kill her in a staged car accident, a London tabloid newspaper reported Monday Oct. 20, 2003. In excerpts from a forthcoming book by by Diana's one-time butler Paul Burrell, The Daily Mirror quoted the princess as writing that "this particular phase in my life is the most dangerous. "(AP Photo/Jacques Brinon) Image Credit: AP

Princess Diana dies in Paris car crash

1997 - Britain’s Princess Diana and her millionaire companion Dodi Al Fayed were killed when their car crashed while being chased through Paris by photographers on motorcycles. Diana, the world’s most photographed woman and divorced wife of the heir to the British throne, was rushed to the intensive care unit of the Salpetriere hospital in eastern Pans. But five hours after the crash, French Interior Minister Jean Pierre Chevenement said at the hospital that doctors had failed to save her life. The accident took place about 35 minutes past midnight while the Mercedes Benz carrying the princess was being pursued by press photographers.

August 31

1876 - Turkey’s Sultan Murad V is deposed on plea of insanity and is succeeded by Abdul Hamid II.

1900 - British forces under Frederick Roberts occupy Johannesburg, South Africa.

1907 - England, Russia and France form Triple Entente.

1918 - Bolshevik troops attack British Embassy in Petrograd, Russia.

1919 - Ukrainian Army recaptures Kiev.

1922 - Czech-Serb-Croat Alliance is signed at Marienbad.

1935 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act prohibiting the export of US arms to belligerents.

1939 - Japanese invasion army driven out of Mongolia.

1951 - The first 33-rpm long-playing record is introduced by the German company Deutsche Grammophon.

1955 - The world’s first solar-power automobile designed by William G. Cobb, is demonstrated in Chicago, Illinois.

1957 - Malaysia gains independence from Britain.

1962 - Trinidad and Tobago become independent nation within British Commonwealth.

1969 - Boxer Rocky Marciano dies in a plane crash in Iowa at age 45.

1971 - Cuba terminates the airlift that had brought 246,000, Cuban refugees from Havana to Florida since December 1965.

1977 - Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith’s party wins the election and gains all 50 white seats in Parliament.

1978 - Constitution is adopted by Sri Lanka.

1987 - South Africa’s longest mine strike in history ends.

1986 - The Soviet passenger liner SS Admiral Nakhimov sinks after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev in the Black Sea, 423 people are killed.

1990 - East and West Germany sign a treaty to join legal and political systems.

1991 - Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan declare independence.

1993 - Venezuela president Carlos Perez flees.

1994 - Irish Republican Army declares an open-ended ceasefire in its 24-year campaign against British rule of Northern Ireland.

2005 - Some 1,000 Iraqi Shiite pilgrims die in a stampede over a Baghdad bridge, apparently provoked by rumours of a suicide bomber.

2009 - The Walt Disney company announces the acquisition of Marvel Entertainment inc’s stock at $4 billion.

2010 - American forces ends seven years of combat operations in Iraq.

2013 - An ammonia leak from a cold storage unit at a food company in China’s commercial hub of Shanghai kills 15 people.

2016 - Placido Domingo inaugurates Dubai Opera the first opera house in Downtown.

HIGHLIGHT

1997 Princess Diana dies in Paris car crash

Britain’s Princess Diana and her millionaire companion Dodi Al Fayed were killed when their car crashed while being chased through Paris by photographers on motorcycles. Diana, the world’s most photographed woman and divorced wife of the heir to the British throne, was rushed to the intensive care unit of the Salpetriere hospital in eastern Pans. But five hours after the crash, French Interior Minister Jean Pierre Chevenement said at the hospital doctors had failed to save her life. The accident took place about 35 minutes past midnight while the Mercedes Benz carrying the princess was being pursued by press photographers on motorcycles. The car was driving at the time through a tunnel at the Place de l’Alma, across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower. A badly damaged motorcycle was taken away from the accident site by police after the crash, which also killed the driver of the princess’s car. Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Diana’s ex-husband Prince Charles are “deeply shocked and distressed” by her death after a car crash in Paris, Buckingham Palace said in a statement.