Elisabeth II, Queen

(1926) is Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. When her father died in 1952, Elizabeth became head of the Commonwealth and queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries. Significant events have included her coronation in 1953 and the celebrations of her Silver, Golden, and Diamond Jubilees in 1977, 2002, and 2012, respectively. In 2017, she became the first British monarch to reach a Sapphire Jubilee. She is the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, the longest-serving female head of state in world history, and the world’s oldest living monarch, longest-reigning current monarch, and oldest and longest-serving current head of state. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiments and press criticism of the royal family, in particular 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, in the United Kingdom, support for the monarchy has been and remains consistently high, as does her personal popularity.