Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II reigned for seventy years and 214 days, longer than any other British monarch. Born in London in 1926, she was not expected to inherit; her uncle Edward VIII abdicated in December 1936 when she was ten, making her father George VI and her the heir. She trained as a mechanic and driver in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1945, the only female member of the royal family to serve in the armed forces. She married Philip Mountbatten in 1947 and acceded in February 1952 at twenty-five while in Kenya, learning of her father's death in a treehouse hotel. The coronation in 1953 was televised at her insistence against the government's advice, and some twenty-seven million people in Britain watched. She held weekly audiences with fifteen prime ministers, from Churchill, born in 1874, to Liz Truss, appointed two days before her death, and never disclosed the content of any of them. Her constitutional position required that her opinions be unknown, and they largely were — the exceptions, such as a remark before the Scottish referendum, were oblique enough to be deniable. She presided over the dismantling of the empire and the growth of the Commonwealth from eight members to fifty-six, and made state visits to Ireland in 2011 and shook Martin McGuinness's hand in 2012. The difficult years were 1992, when Windsor burned and three of her children's marriages failed, and 1997, when her silence after Diana's death was widely resented until she broadcast. She died at Balmoral in September 2022.
- Lived: 1926 CE – 2022 CE
- Nationality: British
- Roles: queen, head_of_state
