The Queen of England, Elizabeth II has died. Doctors had placed the 96-year-old queen under medical supervision at Balmoral Castle, her estate in the Scottish Highlands.
“The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon,” a statement from Buckingham Palace read.
In her last moments, her son and heir to the throne, Prince Charles as well as his siblings, relatives and other dignitaries travelled to Balmoral to be at their mother’s side.
Here are some things to know about the late British monarch.
• Born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary on April 21, 1926. She was Queen of the United Kingdom and 14 other sovereign countries.
• Elizabeth 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 became King in 1936 upon the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII, making Elizabeth the heir presumptive
• On the morning of her father’s demise in 1952, 25-year-old Elizabeth was in a treehouse in Kenya from which she’d watched a herd of elephants led by matriarchs come to a watering hole.
• Elizabeth became queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon (known today as Sri Lanka), as well as Head of the Commonwealth.
• In November 1947, she tied the knots with Philip Mountbatten, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, and they remained married for 73 years until his death in April 2021.
• They had four children together: Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.
• Significant events include Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 and the celebrations of her Silver, Golden, Diamond, and Platinum jubilees in 1977, 2002, 2012, and 2022, respectively.
• Queen Elizabeth is the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, the oldest and longest-serving incumbent head of state, and the second-longest verifiable reigning sovereign monarch in world history.
• The queen reigned as a constitutional monarch through major political changes such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, devolution in the United Kingdom, the decolonisation of Africa, and the United Kingdom’s accession to the European Communities and withdrawal from the European Union.
• She has faced occasional republican sentiment and media criticism of her family, particularly after the breakdowns of her children’s marriages, her annus horribilis in 1992, and the death of her former daughter-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.