July 29th
Just after 11 a.m. on July 29, 1981, a 20-year-old kindergarten teacher’s aide named Diana Spencer stepped out of a glass coach at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London — and into the biggest television event the world had ever seen. An estimated 750 million people in 74 countries were watching. Another 600,000 lined the streets of London, some camping out for days to hold their spot. The occasion: her marriage to Charles, Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne.
The dress alone made history. Designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel and kept under armed guard before the big day, the ivory silk taffeta gown trailed a 25-foot train — so long it barely fit in the carriage, and so famous that sketches of it were on front pages worldwide within hours. The couple had chosen St. Paul’s over the traditional Westminster Abbey for a simple reason: it held more people. Some 3,500 guests packed the cathedral while the Archbishop of Canterbury declared the day “the stuff of which fairy tales are made.”
Then came the moment everyone remembers. Standing at the altar in front of a watching planet, Diana got her groom’s names in the wrong order — vowing to take “Philip Charles Arthur George” instead of Charles Philip Arthur George. The congregation smiled; the world found it charming. And she wasn’t alone: Charles slipped too, promising to share “thy goods” instead of “my worldly goods.” Even a royal wedding rehearsed to the second, it turned out, couldn’t script away human nerves.
Afterward, the newlyweds rode to Buckingham Palace and gave the crowd something no royal couple had ever done on that balcony: a kiss, in full view of the cameras. It instantly became one of the most famous images of the decade — and a tradition royal couples have followed ever since. Whatever came later for Charles and Diana, on this one summer morning in 1981, the fairy tale belonged to everyone watching.
Also On This Day…
1588 — The English Fleet Breaks the Spanish Armada The night before, the English had sent eight blazing fireships drifting into the anchored Spanish Armada off Calais, scattering the “invincible” fleet in panic. On July 29, 1588, the English navy — with Sir Francis Drake among its commanders — fell on the disordered Spanish ships off Gravelines. Faster English vessels pounded the lumbering galleons at close range for hours, and the shattered Armada was driven north into the storms that would finish the job. Spain’s grand invasion of England was over, and a small island nation had announced itself as a power at sea.
1836 — Paris Finally Unveils the Arc de Triomphe Napoleon ordered the Arc de Triomphe built in 1806 to honor his Grande Armée after the victory at Austerlitz, reportedly promising his soldiers they would “return home through arches of triumph.” Thirty years later, on July 29, 1836, the massive monument was finally inaugurated — long after Napoleon’s fall and death. The emperor never saw his arch completed. He passed through it anyway: in 1840, his remains were carried beneath it on their way to his tomb at Les Invalides.
1890 — The World Loses Vincent van Gogh On July 29, 1890, in a small inn room in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, Vincent van Gogh died at just 37, his devoted brother Theo at his bedside. He left behind roughly 900 paintings — wheat fields, sunflowers, swirling night skies — and by most accounts had managed to sell only one of them in his lifetime. Within a few decades, the penniless painter nobody wanted would be recognized as one of the greatest artists who ever lived, his canvases eventually selling for tens of millions of dollars each.
1958 — Eisenhower Signs NASA Into Existence With the stroke of a pen on July 29, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act — the paperwork that created NASA. The new civilian agency opened for business that October, absorbing the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and its 8,000 employees. Everything America would later do beyond the sky traces back to the signature Ike put on paper this day.
1965 — The Beatles Premiere “Help!” in London On July 29, 1965, the Beatles’ second film, “Help!”, had its royal world premiere at the London Pavilion, with Princess Margaret in attendance and thousands of screaming fans jamming Piccadilly Circus outside. The zany full-color caper — and its title song, an actual cry for help John Lennon later admitted he’d written about his own life — cemented Beatlemania as a force no theater, or city block, could contain.
From a fleet of fireships off Calais, to a triumphal arch its emperor never saw finished, to a nervous bride charming 750 million people by mixing up four names — July 29th is proof that history’s biggest moments are still carried out by ordinary, fallible human beings.
