Diana, Princess of Wales and ex-wife of Britain’s Prince Charles, dies in an automobile accident in Paris along with her companion. Her funeral draws international coverage and mourning. Fashion mogul Gianni Versace is murdered in Florida. The suspect, Andrew Cunanan, also wanted for four other murders, commits suicide as the police close in.

Also that year:

• The Supreme Court affirms the legality of the line-item veto law, which President Clinton uses for the first time to kill some provisions in the balanced budget act.

• British colonial rule over Hong Kong ends after 156 years and China takes control. The city known for its capitalist tradition will now be a “Special Administrative Region” of China.

• Cats, a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and based on the poems of T.S. Eliot, becomes the longest running show in Broadway history.

• The television series Ellen creates controversy when its lead character reveals that she is a lesbian. Off camera, the show’s star Ellen DeGeneres also comes out as gay.

• NASA’s Mars Pathfinder spacecraft lands on Mars and sends out its Sojourner rover to gather chemical and geological data about the planet’s surface. Later that year, the Mars Global Surveyor goes into orbit above Mars in preparation for a photographic mapping mission that will last a Martian year (nearly two Earth years).