Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 6 February 1952, is the longest-serving monarch in British history as she celebrated in June 2022, the 70th anniversary (platinum jubilee) of the throne before announcing her death on 8 September September 2022.

Birth and upbringing

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was born on April 21, 1926, nicknamed "Lilibet" far from the royal sphere, in a house in London on Broughton Street.

Elizabeth is the eldest daughter of Prince Albert, Duke of York, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who in 1937 became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Queen Elizabeth II is the mother of Prince Charles, heir to the throne, as well as the grandmother of Princes William and Harry.

World War II

Her father was crowned King George VI, and took the name George to emphasize his continuity with his father.

Her mother became Queen Elizabeth.

After King George's death in 1952, she became the Queen Mother and her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II.

With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Elizabeth and her sister remained largely outside London, having been moved to Windsor Castle, and from there she made her first famous radio program in 1940, which was a special speech to reassure British children who had been evacuated from their homes and families .

Soon Elizabeth began to take on other public duties.

Her father was appointed colonel to the Commander of the Grenadier Guard, and her first public appearance to inspect the troops was in 1942. She also began accompanying her parents on official visits within Britain.

In 1945 Elizabeth joined the Territorial Service to assist in the war effort and trained alongside other British women to become an expert chauffeur and mechanic, her volunteer work lasting only a few months.

Study and scientific training

Elizabeth and her younger sister Margaret were homeschooled by tutors.

Courses included French academics, mathematics and history, along with lessons in dance, singing, and the arts.

Journey to the crown

When Elizabeth's grandfather, George V, died in 1936, his eldest son (Elizabeth's uncle) King Edward VIII took the throne, but he loved the American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, and had to choose between the crown and his heart, so he chose Edward Simpson and abdicated the crown.

In 1937, her father, King George VI, crowned the throne and continued to rule until his death in 1952. Elizabeth II became the legal heir to the throne, as she assumed the responsibilities of the king on February 6, 1952.

Highlights

When Elizabeth became queen, postwar Britain still had significant empire, dominance, and dependencies.

During the 1950s and 1960s, many of these possessions gained independence and the British Empire developed into the Commonwealth of Nations.

Elizabeth II made visits to other countries as Head of the Commonwealth and as Britain's representative, including a groundbreaking trip to Germany in 1965. She became the first British Queen to pay a state visit there in more than five decades.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Elizabeth continued to travel extensively.

In 1973 she attended the Commonwealth Conference in Ottawa, Canada, and in 1976 she traveled to the United States to celebrate the bicentennial of America's independence from Britain.

More than a week later, she was in Montreal, Canada, for the opening of the Summer Olympics.

In 1979, she traveled to Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman.

In 2002, the Queen said goodbye to her sister Margaret after suffering a stroke and her mother known as the Queen Mother at the age of 101, the same year she celebrated her golden jubilee, or 50 years on the throne.

In 2011, Elizabeth became the first British monarch to visit the Republic of Ireland since 1911 (when all of Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom).

In 2012 Britain abolished the Civil List, a nearly 250-year-old public financing system for the monarchy that allowed the royal family to receive some government support, but the Queen was forced to cut back on spending.

In 2012, Elizabeth celebrated her diamond jubilee, marking the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne, and on September 9, 2015, Elizabeth overtook her great-grandmother Queen Victoria as the longest-reigning British monarch, whose reign lasted 63 years, 7 months and 2 days (from 20 June 1837). until her death on January 22, 1901).

On 6 February 2017, the Queen celebrated the 65th anniversary of the throne, the only British monarch to celebrate her sapphire jubilee and the date also coincided with the anniversary of her father's death.

In August 2019, Elizabeth made a rare intervention in political affairs when she agreed to a request from Prime Minister Boris Johnson to postpone (suspend) Parliament until October 14, less than three weeks before Britain's planned exit from the European Union.

Elizabeth has had 14 prime ministers, and she has met nearly a quarter of US presidents in history, the last of whom was Donald Trump in June 2019.

Only two monarchs have recorded a reign longer than Elizabeth II, King Louis XIV who ruled for more than 72 years between 1643 and 1715, and King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand (who ruled 70 years and 4 months, from 9 June 1946 to 13 October). October 2016).

Marriage..children..grandchildren

Elizabeth married her distant cousin Philip Mountbatten (a surname adopted by his mother) on 20 November 1947, at Westminster Abbey, London at a time when Great Britain was still recovering from the ravages of World War II.

Before that, a love story between Elizabeth and Philip, son of Prince Andrew of Greece, gathered, when she was only thirteen years old, and their engagement was officially announced on July 9, 1947.

After just one year of marriage, the Queen gave birth to her son Charles in 1948, then her daughter Anne in 1950, and Elizabeth gave birth to two more children, Andrew and Edward, in 1960 and 1964, respectively.

Charles and Diana had Elizabeth's grandson Prince William, in 1982, and Prince Harry in 1984, and on July 22, 2013, Elizabeth's grandson William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, welcomed their first child, George Alexander Louis, successor to the throne known officially as "His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge ".

On May 2, 2015, William and Kate welcomed their second child, Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, the Queen's fifth grandchild, and on April 23, 2018, they had their third child, Prince Louis Arthur Charles.

On May 6, 2019, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and his wife, Meghan Markle, gave the Queen another grandchild, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

In addition to Prince William and Prince Harry, the Queen has other grandchildren: Peter Phillips, Princess Beatrice of York, and Princess Eugenie, Princess of York.

Functions and Responsibilities

During her reign, Elizabeth made about 21,000 official commitments, gave "royal approval" to nearly 4,000 bills, and received a large number of dignitaries in the framework of 112 official visits, including Emperor Haile Selassie (Ethiopia in 1954) and Japanese Emperor Hirohito ( in 1971) and Polish President Lech Walesa (in 1991) and his US counterpart Barack Obama (in 2011).

Under her supervision, more than 180 receptions were held at Buckingham Palace, attended by more than 1.5 million people.

Notable Achievements

Elizabeth was the first British monarch to visit China in 1996, and the first British monarch to address the US House of Representatives on May 16, 1991.

She sent her first email on March 26, 1976, during a visit to a Defense Department research center, and in 1997 launched the first official Buckingham Palace website.

She wrote her first tweet on Twitter in 2014, and her first post on Instagram was in 2019, and Elizabeth is the only queen who (almost) jumped with a parachute with James Bond, as she appeared in a video clip completed for the opening of the 2012 Olympics in London, receiving the spy who embodies his role Actor Daniel Craig at Buckingham Palace before they both board a raft and soar in the skies of London and then jump (in a dramatic scene) over the Olympic stadium, which witnessed the actual presence of the Queen was greatly welcomed.

travel

As queen, Elizabeth has visited more than 100 countries, another record for a British monarch.

She has made more than 150 visits to Commonwealth countries, as she visited Canada 22 times, which is the most visited member country of the Commonwealth, while she went 13 times to France, which speaks its language and represents the most visited European country.

According to the calculations of the "Daily Telegraph" newspaper, the Queen toured the world an average of 42 times before she stopped traveling abroad in November 2015 when she was 89 years old.

Her longest trip outside the United Kingdom took 168 days between November 1953 and May 1954), during which she visited 13 countries.

Crown

In 1969, Charles officially appointed her successor by giving him the title Prince of Wales and hundreds of millions of people watched the ceremony on television.

In 1981, 32-year-old Charles married 19-year-old Diana Spencer (better known as Princess Diana), with later rumors emerging that he was pressured into marriage.

Two assassination attempts

In June 1981, Elizabeth was the target of an assassination attempt when she was participating in a special military parade to celebrate her official birthday.

A man in the crowd pointed a gun at her and fired, but fortunately the gun was empty, and the Queen was unharmed.

In December 2021, police arrested a man armed with a bow and arrow who stormed Windsor Castle, where the Queen was celebrating Christmas, threatening to assassinate her.

And the man appeared in a video clip, wearing a white mask and black clothes, and carrying a bow and arrows (a crossbow), and saying: "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did, and what I will do, I will try to assassinate Queen Elizabeth."

The man declared that he wanted to avenge those killed in the massacre of Amritsar, an Indian city revered by Sikhs at the Golden Temple, which occurred in 1919, when it was under British colonial rule.

Death

Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8, 2022 at the age of 99, and about a year and a half before her husband Philip died on April 9, 2021 at the age of 99.