Elizabeth Alexandra Mary (Queen Elizabeth II) was born on 21 April 1926. The queen is 95-years-old and is Queen of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms.
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Queen Elizabeth II was born in Mayfair, London, as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). Her father acceded to the throne in 1936 upon the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII, making Elizabeth the heir presumptive.
She was educated privately at home and began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In November 1947, she married Philip Mountbatten, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, and their marriage lasted 73 years until Philip’s death in 2021. They had four children: Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.
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Significant events have included the Queen’s coronation in 1953 and the celebrations of her Silver, Golden, Diamond, Sapphire, and Platinum jubilees in 1977, 2002, 2012, 2017, and 2022 respectively.
Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, the longest-serving female head of state in history, the oldest living and longest-reigning current monarch, and the oldest and longest-serving incumbent head of state.
Queen Elizabeth II has occasionally faced republican sentiment and press criticism of the royal family, particularly after the breakdown of her children’s marriages, her annus horribilis in 1992, and the death in 1997 of her former daughter-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales.
However, support for the monarchy in the United Kingdom has been and remains consistently high, as does her personal popularity.
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