LONDON, June 2 — The UK on Thursday is starting celebrations of a truly unprecedented occasion in some 1,200 years of British royalty: the Platinum Jubilee, the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II ascending the British throne.
The four days of celebrations started in London with a birthday parade just before midday and continued with the Trooping of the Color, which also saw the attendance of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie.
The event was followed by a royal gun salute and the traditional balcony appearance of the Queen.
The jubilee is also being celebrated across the country with street parties and mini-concerts, and from Thursday evening beacons will be lit, Anadolu Agency reported.
Thousands of people crowded The Mall in the early hours of the day to see the celebratory events.
Born on April 21, 1926, Queen Elizabeth II ascended to the throne upon the death of her father, King George VI, on February 6, 1952.
In 2015, she became the longest-serving British monarch ever, breaking the record of Queen Victoria, who sat on the throne for 63 years and seven months.
Elizabeth II is the first-ever British monarch to see the platinum jubilee, which means 70 years on the throne.
She is the only female royal family member to have entered the armed forces.
Elizabeth II is the world’s best-travelled head of state, having visited more than 110 countries but she never used a passport as she does not have one. She is also the only person in the UK who is allowed behind the wheel of a car without a driver’s license.
Her first official visit was to then-West Germany in 1965, also the first German visit by a British royal since before the outbreak of World War I.
According to Anadolu Agency, some international developments of great importance during the queen’s reign include the 1956 Suez crisis, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the 1967 Six-Day War (Arab-Israeli War), the 1969 moon landing, the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall, the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, the 1992 Maastricht Treaty (EU Treaty), the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, the election of Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s president in 1994, the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the 2016 Brexit vote, and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.
When Elizabeth II took the throne in 1952, the leader of the USSR was Joseph Stalin, and the US president was Harry S. Truman.
The UK saw 14 prime ministers under Elizabeth’s long reign, from the stately but controversial Winston Churchill to currently embattled Boris Johnson.
The 96-year-old monarch remains the head of state of 15 countries in the British Commonwealth, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Saint Lucia, Solomon Islands, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the non-Commonwealth states of Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands.
— Bernama
