81 facts about The Queen I Pictures: ten oldest British monarchs

Queen Elizabeth II became the longest living monarch in British history today.

AT 1700 GMT the Queen surpassed the 81 years and 243 days of Queen Victoria, her great-great-grandmother, but there was no special event to commemorate the historic landmark.

“There’s nothing the Queen is doing to mark the occasion, others have noticed the date but it’s nothing that we were thinking about marking. This is just another normal working day,” said a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman.

Just as she has done almost every day for the last 54 years, the Queen worked her way through official red boxes of letters, schedules and updates from her Government.

Perhaps the Queen will break off from her routine paperwork on September 9, 2015 when she will beat another of Queen Victoria’s records and become the Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

She was born on April 21, 1926 and crowned Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953 to become the 40th British monarch since William I in 1066. She is the world’s second-longest serving monarch alive, after Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

In more than half a century she has outlasted 11 Prime Ministers and celebrated the birth of eight grandchildren including a baby boy born to the Earl and Countess of Wessex on Monday.

Elizabeth was originally third in line to the throne behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father, George, Duke of York. She became the heir after Edward, then King Edward VIII, abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee, and her father became King George VI.

In 1947, she married Philip Mountbatten, her third cousin and a British naval commander. He renounced his titles as prince of Greece and Denmark to marry her.

The couple’s first son, Charles, was born in 1948, followed by Anne in 1950, Andrew in 1960 and Edward in 1964.

Elizabeth was in Kenya when her father died in February 1952, making her queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

In 2002 the Queen embarked on a hugely successful 13-week world tour to celebrate 50 years on the throne. She visited 70 cities and towns in 50 counties throughout the UK and making a jubilee circumnavigation of the globe to visit Jamaica, New Zealand and Australia.

During her reign, the Queen has set records including being the first British monarch to send an e-mail, have a message put on the moon and hold a public concert in her back garden.

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