She may have been the “people’s princess,” but everyone knows the role Princess Diana treasured most was being mom to her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.

The late Princess of Wales wed Prince Charles in a grand ceremony in 1981. The pair welcomed their first child, William Arthur Philip Louis, the following year on June 21, 1982. They then expanded their family with the addition of Henry Charles Albert David on Sept. 15, 1984, before Diana and Charles’ tumultuous relationship ended in 1996, four years after they initially separated.

On Aug. 31, 1997, Princess Diana died following a high-speed car accident in the Place de l’Alma underpass in Paris.

In the BBC documentary Diana, 7 Days released in 2017, Prince William recalled “just feeling completely numb, disorientated, dizzy” upon learning about their mother’s death.

“You feel very, very confused,” William said. “And you keep asking yourself, ‘Why me?’ All the time, ‘Why? What have I done? Why? Why has this happened to us?'”

In his memoir, Spare, Prince Harry revealed he found out about the news from his dad.

“I remember waiting patiently for Pa to confirm that indeed Mummy was all right,” Harry recalled. “And I remember him not doing that.”

Charles told his younger son that Diana “didn’t make it.”

“These phrases remain in my mind like darts in a board,” Prince Harry said. “He did say it that way, I know that much for sure. She didn’t make it. And then everything seemed to come to a stop.”

The two princes, despite their estrangement, are united in preserving her memory, coming together in 2021 to unveil a statue for her 60th birthday. “Every day, we wish she were still with us, and our hope is that this statue will be seen forever as a symbol of her life and her legacy,” they said at the time.

“She was our guardian, friend and protector. She never once allowed her unfaltering love for us to go unspoken or undemonstrated. Behind the media glare, to us, two children, she was quite simply the best mother in the world,” Harry said in a speech on the 10th anniversary of Diana’s death.

On what would have been Diana’s 65th birthday, July 1, 2026, see some of the most heartwarming photos of Princess Diana with her two sons.