Sixty-five years ago, Britain’s Princess Elizabeth, then 25 years old, became the monarch following the death of her father, King George VI. In Britain Monday, the queen's sapphire jubilee was marked with gun salutes at London's Green Park and at the Tower of London.
Elizabeth, the elder of the king’s two daughters, was in Kenya at the time of her father’s death from lung cancer. The following year, she was crowned Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953, at age 27. Her coronation was the first-ever broadcast live on television.
The queen is now the longest-reigning monarch in British history. She will celebrate her 91st birthday in April.
She has three sons and a daughter with husband Prince Philip - the firstborn and heir to the throne, Prince Charles, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and Princess Anne. The queen's extraordinary life and reign were recently dramatized in a critically-acclaimed television series, The Crown, that aired on Netflix.
