OTHERS WHO SHAPED 1997: PRINCESS DIANA

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who learned she had been expected to be a little boy. So intent were her parents on a son that they failed to prepare for the possibility of her appearance, and she had to wait till the week after her birth to receive her full name: Diana Frances Spencer. Two older sisters (and the brother who eventually arrived) would have royal godparents, but her father and mother chose commoners to swear their faith for her at the baptismal font.

Her first memory was of plastic, a warm synthetic smell touched off by...

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