Queen Elizabeth II’s Life In Pictures

Queen Elizabeth II with Sir Winston Churchill

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth with Princess Margaret Rose, left, and Princess Elizabeth, right, at the Welsh House, a miniature cottage on the grounds of Windsor Castle, Berkshire, in 1931.

In 1939, when Philip was a cadet at the Royal Navy College, he began exchanging letters with Princess Elizabeth, the 13-year-old heir to the British throne.
Her early correspondence about Philip tells the tale of a besotted teenager. She described him as looking “like a Viking god.” The third cousins eventually got engaged in the summer of 1947.

The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was held June 2, 1953, in Westminster Abbey in London, more than a year after Elizabeth, then 26, ascended the throne of the United Kingdom upon the death of her father, King George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952.
She was crowned queen of the United Kingdom as well as taking on the role of head of the Commonwealth.
The coronation was the first to be televised and was also the world’s first major international event to be broadcast on television.

Prince Charles and his bride, Diana, Princess of Wales, and his parents, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, wave from the balcony of Buckingham Palace in London after their marriage at St. Paul’s Cathedral on July 29, 1981.

Queen Elizabeth II and Mother Teresa look at the insignia of the honorary Order of Merit that the queen presented in New Delhi on Nov. 24, 1983.

WINDSOR, ENGLAND – JULY 17: Queen Elizabeth II awards Captain Sir Thomas Moore with the insignia of Knight Bachelor at Windsor Castle on July 17, 2020 in Windsor, England. British World War II veteran Captain Tom Moore raised over ??32 million for the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

South African President Nelson Mandela and Queen Elizabeth II ride in a carriage along the Mall, London, on the first full day of his state visit to Britain on July 9, 1996.