February 6, 1952: HRH the Princess Elizabeth ascends the throne. 

Today marks the sixtieth anniversary of the accession of Elizabeth II, Britain’s oldest ever reigning monarch. Upon the death of her beloved father, George VI, Elizabeth (at that time on tour in Kenya) was hastily declared queen regnant of the sixteen Commonwealth realms, an enormous amount of responsibility for the then twenty-five-year-old princess. 

The first proclamation of accession came from the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada (those Canadians, always on top of things!), followed by the United Kingdom’s own proclamation, which stated:

“WE, therefore, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of this Realm … do now hereby with one voice and Consent of Tongue and Heart publish and proclaim that the High and Mighty Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary is now, by the death of our late Sovereign of happy memory, become Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of all Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith…”

The British representatives in South Africa and Australia soon followed suit with similar statements, beginning the sixty-year reign of Queen Elizabeth, whose rule is second in length only to that of Queen Victoria.

(the Queen at her coronation, a little over a year later.)