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By Philip Whiteside

15 September 1984

Birth into a family divided

His Royal Highness Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales was born at 4.20am in the private Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital - the third in line to the throne.

His mother Princess Diana told her biographer Andrew Morton that the weeks leading up to his birth were happy ones, compared with some of the period after the birth of Harry's brother William. Mr Morton has also written that in the months after his birth, indeed on the day Harry was born, the marriage "went down the drain".

As Harry became a toddler and then a young boy, his parents' relationship continued to deteriorate - a result of what Penny Junor says in her biography was a "tragic mismatch" between them. Mr Morton says that within three years, his parents stopped sharing a bedroom. A few years later, when Mr Morton published his 1992 biography Diana, he wrote that Harry's mother dreaded "Charles's appearance."

He wrote: "The days when she is happiest is when he is in Scotland. When he is in Kensington Palace, she feels absolutely at a loss and like a child again."

Ms Junor, in her biography, said the failure of his parents' marriage "affected Harry deeply and the man today is the product of that broken home and of all that he heard and felt during his childhood".

9 December 1992

As Charles and Diana separate, she throws herself into charity work

News that the couple would be separating "amicably" was broken to the Commons by prime minister John Major.

in the previous months, the tabloids had published transcripts of intimate phone conversations between Diana and close friend James Gilbey, and between Charles and Camilla.

Although they continued to attend some functions together, Charles and Diana mostly led separate lives, and the following year the Princess said she would be withdrawing from public life.

By then, Diana was spending increasing amounts of time and effort supporting charities. In one famous instance, she was photographed shaking hands with an AIDS patient, despite widespread fear at the time about how the disease was transmitted.

Despite her pledge to keep out of the media spotlight, within months she began increasingly to use media interest in her story to promote other charities and causes that were important to her.

This included visiting the homelessness charity Centrepoint with her children on several occasions, something William later said had left a "deep and lasting impression".

1994

Rumours of disputed paternity

The five-year affair between Diana and an officer in the Lifeguards, Captain James Hewitt, became public.

Rumours had been circulating since 1991 but after Hewitt retired from the Army, Anna Pasternak in her book Princess In Love described the weekends away that the two had spent together.

Soon after the rumours of Diana's affair with the red-headed, fair-faced army captain emerged, speculation began to emerge that Hewitt was Harry's father. That speculation has refused to die down despite repeated denials from Hewitt and clarification from Diana's former royal protection officer Ken Wharfe and her butler Paul Burrell.

Penny Junor writes in her biography that Diana regarded Harry as "my little Spencer" because his height and red hair came from her side of the family.

1995

A family at war in the public eye

A year after Pasternak's book, Diana confirmed to BBC Panorama that she had the affair with Hewitt, who had been her riding instructor.

She said it had occurred at the same time as Prince Charles was renewing his relationship with Camilla, something he had admitted to Jonathan Dimbleby in a TV documentary the year before.

Diana famously said: "There were three of us in this marriage".

Mr Wharfe wrote in his 2002 book Diana: Closely Guarded Secret: "Hewitt, a natural womaniser, gave her the attention and affection she relished, and then the passion she yearned for." Diana also spoke freely about her depression, her bulimia and the monarchy.

29 February 1996

Divorce

Relations between Palace and the Princess deteriorated further as the two camps continued to brief against each other, right up to the point when she agreed to Charles's demand for a divorce.

Details were announced in August, with Diana being reportedly granted a clean break settlement of between £15m-£20m and the right to continue living at Kensington Palace with William and Harry in exchange for her title being altered to Diana, Princess of Wales, without the HRH.

31 August 1997

The death of Diana

Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris, along with her companion Dodi al Fayed.

The armoured Mercedes hit a pillar in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel while the vehicle was being pursued by paparazzi photographers.

A British coroner later ruled that she had been killed unlawfully by a combination of the driving of her chauffeur Henri Paul, who was over the alcohol limit, and the driving of the vehicles following.

At Diana's funeral Harry was watched by millions around the world as, at age 12, he joined his brother and father as they walked behind her cortege.

The previous week had seen a public outpouring of grief, after his mother was described by then-prime minister Tony Blair as the People's Princess.

On the 20th anniversary of Diana's death, Harry told Newsweek : "I don't think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don't think it would happen today."

However, he also told a BBC documentary that it had been a family decision and he was glad he "was part of it".

2002

St James's Palace admits Harry experimented with cannabis

After stories in newspapers revealed Harry had smoked cannabis and drunk alcohol at a pub close to the family estate in Gloucestershire at the age of 16, the Prince's aides released a statement confirming he had "experimented with the drug on several occasions" but his use of it could not be described as "regular".

A spokesman said it was "a serious matter which was resolved within the family, and is now in the past and closed". It also emerged that he had been sent to a drug rehabilitation centre for a couple of hours to talk to addicts to learn about the "consequences of taking drugs," according to the manager of the service.

2003/4

His gap year in Australia and Africa

Harry had been sent to Eton to follow in the footsteps of his brother and after he completed his schooling with two A-levels, he decided to take a gap year in a number of locations, which allowed him to get away from the glare of publicity that had begun to follow him.

He spent three months working on a ranch in Queensland, Australia, learning how to mend fences and herd cattle, he travelled and worked in southern Africa and also went to Lesotho, where he visited an orphanage for children with AIDS and helped build a clinic.

Photos were published in newspapers around the world of him playing rugby with African children - a symbolic moment that marked the start of his interest in some of the humanitarian causes championed by his late mother.

2004-2011

His relationship with Chelsy Davy

The pair had met while the Zimbabwean was a teenager at Cheltenham Ladies' College but they became a pair after reuniting in South Africa while he was on his year out. After he returned to the UK, she chose to study in Leeds so they could be closer together.

The following year, Harry gave relaxed interviews to several media outlets, including Sky News, in which he talked about his "amazing" girlfriend, then 19. He said the work he had done in Lesotho with children on his gap year had made a deep impression and said "I love kids", suggesting for the first time he might follow his mother into charity work.

But, while praising his girlfriend, he criticised media intrusion, saying: "I would love to tell everyone how amazing she is but once I start talking about that, I have left myself open.

"There is truth and there is lies and unfortunately I cannot get the truth across."

Like Harry, Chelsy was a regular on the London party scene and, as a potential future wife of the third in line to the throne, the tabloids were keen to check on how she was behaving.

Despite paparazzi following her around, she stayed with the Prince as he attended Sandhurst and later joined him at formal events attended by the Royal Family.

After the split, she told The Times the relationship had been "full-on: Crazy and scary and uncomfortable", saying she found it "very difficult when it was bad". But she thought "we will always be good friends".

2005

Growing responsibility despite more scandals

The year began with yet more negative publicity after pictures emerged of the 20-year-old prince, who was at that stage a regular at plush London nightclubs, attending a "colonials and natives" fancy dress party, wearing a mock Nazi Afrika Korps uniform.

Harry quickly apologised after being castigated by, among others, the leader of the then Conservative opposition Michael Howard and the Israeli foreign minister.

In September, the month after the marriage of his father to Camilla, he made a documentary about AIDS in Lesotho. At around the same time, he was entrusted by the Queen with the role of Counsellor of State and began a series of official duties. It marked a shift in how he was seen to behave.

2007

First tour in Afghanistan

Harry had joined the Army in mid-2005 and was commissioned into the Blues and Royals, a regiment in the Household Cavalry.

When it was announced his unit was due to deployed to Iraq, where the UK was involved in operations, there was speculation about whether he would be sent somewhere British service personnel were dying while on active duty.

Military chiefs were concerned the young Royal officer may become a "bomb magnet". But Harry was reported to have been determined to serve, in the same capacity as his comrades.

At the end of 2007, he was actually sent to Afghanistan rather than Iraq, serving in Helmand Province, but his deployment was kept secret for 10 weeks while he was there.

He joked about his "bullet magnet" nickname but said: "I finally get the chance to do the soldiering that I want to do."

The posting had been subject to a news blackout, which broke down because of foreign media. As a result, his activities had to be scaled back. During his tour, he was based in a former madrassa with the Gurkha regiment, acting as a forward tactical air controller.

In embargoed interviews, he revealed: "I haven't really had a shower for four days, I haven't washed my clothes for a week. It's very nice to be sort of a normal person for once, I think it's about as normal as I'm going to get."

2009

Accusations of racist language

Just when it had seemed that he had been rehabilitated, the News of the World published videos that showed the Prince describing an Asian-heritage army colleague in language that was described afterwards as racist.

The films had been recorded at Sandhurst, during his training three years before, and included another moment when he described a fellow cadet as a "raghead", a pejorative term for a person who wears a turban. Again, the Palace was forced to say Harry was "extremely sorry" after politicians called for disciplinary action.

It was a disappointing turn of events in a year that had seen Harry and William being granted their own Royal household, St James's Palace, instead of their business being dealt with by their father's office in Clarence House.

August 2012

Partying in Las Vegas

While on leave from the forces, Harry took the opportunity for some R&R in the party capital of the US, Las Vegas.

When snaps of his antics, larking around a pool, playing strip billiards and being pictured naked with a mystery woman, were leaked, it marked another new low for his public profile.

The pictures only emerged in the UK after The Sun broke a media blackout imposed by the Palace on privacy grounds.

Harry later said publication of the photos had not been "acceptable" but admitted he let down his family. He said later: "It was probably a classic example of me probably being too much Army and not enough prince. It's a simple case of that."

The Palace later dropped a complaint saying it would be a distraction to Harry in his military work.

September 2012

Back in Afghanistan, he kills Taliban

Harry was deployed to Afghanistan for a second time, this time as an Apache helicopter pilot.

Based at Camp Bastion, in Helmand, he acted as a co-pilot gunner with 662 Squadron, in charge of one of the two-seater attack helicopters.

Unlike on the previous occasion, the Army had no qualms about trailing his posting, hoping that the number of Apaches in the country would prevent him being too much of a target.

In interviews at the end of his posting, the following January, he said he had not only come under fire but had killed Taliban insurgents.

"Take a life to save a life," he said. "That's what we revolve around, I suppose. If there's people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we'll take them out of the game, I suppose."

He said he had three personas - one in the Army, one in private and another with his family.

"My father's always trying to remind me about who I am and stuff like that," he said. "But it's very easy to forget about who I am when I am in the army. Everyone's wearing the same uniform and doing the same kind of thing. I get on well with the lads and I enjoy my job. It really is as simple as that."

August 2013

Visits a demining project in Angola that his mother had supported

While still serving in the Army, Harry was able to visit the southern African nation of Angola to highlight the work of the HALO Trust in removing mines from the previously war-torn country.

Sixteen years before, his mother Diana had been photographed walking through the same minefields after HALO had removed the devices.

September 2014

Launches the Invictus Games

As a soldier and airman, Harry had seen at first hand the consequences that serving in Britain's wars had had on its service personnel.

He had embarked on a drive to raise awareness of the difficulties faced by often horribly injured troops.

He used his position, both as a prince and as a serving Army officer, to create the Invictus Games, a Paralympics style event for wounded service people.

Over five days, he brought together 416 competitors from 13 countries to take part, with its success guaranteeing it would then become a regular fixture for disabled ex-troops, keen to excel at sport.

July 2016

Meets Meghan Markle

Harry admitted that he had never seen Suits, the US TV drama Meghan Markle had been starring in for five years before the couple were set up on a blind date by a friend.

Perhaps because of that, he said he was immediately struck by her. "I was beautifully surprised when I walked into that room and saw her. I was like, 'OK well I'm going to have to really up my game here,'" he later said.

Four weeks later, he took his wife-to-be on a trip to Botswana to camp under the stars in his tent. "We camped out with each other under the stars," he said.

"The fact that I fell in love with Meghan so incredibly quickly was confirmation to me that all the stars were aligned, everything was just perfect.

"This beautiful woman just tripped and fell into my life, I fell into her life."

They managed to keep it secret for many months more, but, finally, at the Invictus Games in Toronto in 2017, they felt secure enough to let the world know how they felt about each other, being caught on camera kissing during the closing ceremony.

April 2017

Admits he suffered two years of "total chaos" in his late 20s

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, which coincided with work he was doing to highlight mental health, Harry, now 32, said he had sought counselling after suffering a near breakdown, having spent 20 years failing to come to terms with the death of his mother.

He said he only began to address his grief when he was 28 and on the verge of "punching someone" and after facing anxiety while on Royal engagements.

He said that after the treatment he was now in a "good place", but hoped talking about his difficulties would help break the stigma surrounding mental health issues.

November 2017

Gets engaged

Over a roast chicken dinner, at their cottage in London, Harry got down on one knee. Meghan said she could barely wait for him to finishing asking.

"I could barely let you finish proposing. I said, 'can I say yes now?'" she said.

Within weeks, it was announced that the wedding would take place at Windsor Castle on 19 May 2018.

:: Sky News will broadcast live in Windsor the week before the royal wedding with all the build up to the big day, with exclusive live coverage of the wedding in UHD in a special programme ‪from 9am to 3pm on Sky News and Sky One ‪on Saturday 19 May.