Princess Diana would have celebrated her 58th birthday on 1 July.

Humanitarian, fashion icon, hands-on mother, rule-breaker.

Saturday, 31 August, marks 22 years since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Across the world, fans are honoring the “People’s Princess” and remembering the legacy she left behind.

“22 years today… Remembering the beautiful mother and global icon,” wrote “Dancing with the Stars” judge Bruno Tonioli on Twitter.

Born Diana Frances Spencer in 1961, she became an influential force in the royal family when she married Prince Charles at 20 years old on 29 July 1981.

She left her mark with many firsts for the royal family, including breaking protocol with bold fashion choices, being the target of fierce media attention, speaking out about mental illness and being visibly involved in the upbringing of her sons, Princes William and Harry.

After being married for 15 years, Diana and Charles divorced. One year later, in 1997, a car carrying Diana and her boyfriend, Egyptian socialite Dodi Fayed, crashed in a tunnel in Paris.

They had been chased by members of the paparazzi on motorcycles. But after conspiracy theories and rumors about her death, a 2006 investigation by British police deemed the crash an accident and determined the car’s driver, Henri Paul, was driving intoxicated.

Queen Elizabeth II and a number of family members including Charles and their sons, were at Balmoral in Scotland when Diana died at Pitié-Salpétrière Hospital in Paris at 4 a.m.

Prince Charles delivered the news to the Queen, but the details were still sparse. They were informed Diana escaped the crash unharmed. But another phone call changed all that.

Charles was told, “Sir, I am very sorry to have to tell you that I’ve just had the Ambassador on the phone. The Princess died a short time ago,” which caused him to break down in tears.

Prince William (left) was 15 years old and Harry 12 when their mother died. (Getty Images)

Gary Barlow, former lead singer of British group Take That, posted a picture on Instagram of the time his group met Diana at an AIDS benefit concert at Wembley Arena in 1994.

“Princess Diana — always in our hearts — we were lucky enough to have the pleasure of spending some time with this amazing woman. She will always be missed,” the post read.

American actress Jamie Lee Curtis reminisced about having just missed Diana’s short visit to her movie set, a few months before her death, because the actress was in the bathroom. But she said she wrote Diana and received a handwritten reply from Kensington Palace saying she hoped they would get to meet in the future.

“I thought about her and her life and the choices she made and how brave she was,” Curtis wrote on Instagram. “It gave me comfort that although her life was short, it was complete. She was a great role model for me. An example to live by. I honor her today.” (CNN)

Celebrities weren’t the only ones honoring Diana on Saturday. The British Red Cross honored her with a video commemorating her extensive work with the organization for 14 years.

“22 years after her death, we pay tribute to #PrincessDiana’s humanitarian work with the Red Cross both in the UK and abroad,” the British Red Cross wrote on Twitter.

Her humanitarian work with dozens of charities humanized the royal family and caught the world’s attention. She famously shook the hand of a man with AIDS — without gloves — to help break the stigma surrounding the illness. She worked on numerous anti-land mine campaigns in Angola and Bosnia and traveled to other countries to visit patients suffering from leprosy and cancer.

Acorns Children’s Hospice, a charity that provides care to children in the UK, wrote, “Today we remember the very wonderful Princess Diana who did so much for so many.” Diana opened the first Acorn’s Hospice in 1988.

Diana’s humanitarian work has rubbed off on her successors, including her son Harry, who has followed in his mother’s footsteps in the fight against HIV/AIDS and with work in Angola.

The Mercedes crashed against the 13th pillar in the Pont d’Alma (Getty Images)

The firefighter who attended to Princess Diana also recollected the Princess’ final words.

Speaking in French, firefighter Xavier Gourmelon told ITV’s Good Morning: “There was a blonde person who was sitting on the floor. She regained consciousness and looked at me and said ‘oh my God, what’s happened?’

“We took her out of a car, put her on a stretcher. At that moment the doctor said she was in cardiac arrest so we gave her CPR, and after 20 seconds she regained consciousness.”

On whether he saw any paparazzi, the first attendant said: “No, when I arrived there was no one around the car.”

Every year on the anniversary of her tragic death, Diana’s sons reportedly get together for lunch or dinner at Kensington Palace, where they both lived until Harry moved out this spring, and remember all of the good times that they shared with their mother.

In the years since their mother’s death, both William and Harry have been fairly candid about the effect that her passing had on them and the various emotions that they’ve experienced in the two decades without her in their lives.

“I think when you are bereaved at a very young age, anytime really, but particularly at a young age — I can resonate closely to that — you feel pain like no other pain,” William, 37, said in a mental health documentary. “And you know that in your life it’s going to be very difficult to come across something that is going to be an even worse pain than that.”

Harry has similarly found comfort in those who have also lost people close to them, as a veteran recently recalled the duke telling him at the 2020 Invictus Games launch in May, days after Harry welcomed his first son, Archie, into the world.

“I told Harry about my mother and we talked about our shared experience of missing a mum. He said missing a mother is like missing some kind of security, how you need that as a son and it falls away when you lose your mother,” the vet recalled of his conversation with Harry. “He said he meets a lot of people in his work who have lost a mother, father, sister, brother or relatives and when he hears their story, as he heard my story, he said he doesn’t feel so alone.” (CNN, Express, AOL)