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Elizabeth was born in London on April 21, 1926.
Nobody expected her to be queen.
Her uncle was going to be king, and she was a little princess who loved horses and dogs.
But in 1936 her uncle gave up the throne to marry the woman he loved.
Suddenly her father was King George the Sixth, and ten-year-old Elizabeth was next in line.
When the Second World War began, she was thirteen.
At fourteen she spoke on the radio to children who had been sent away from their homes to be safe.
In 1945 she joined the army's women's service and trained as a driver and mechanic.
She learned to change a wheel and repair an engine — a princess with oil on her hands.
In 1947 she married Philip, a young navy officer.
In February 1952, Elizabeth was on a trip to Kenya when the news came: her father had died.
She had left home a princess, and she flew back a queen.
She was twenty-five.
Her coronation took place on June 2, 1953.
She rode to Westminster Abbey in a golden carriage pulled by eight gray horses.
Inside, the heavy crown was placed on her head.
It was the first coronation ever shown on television.
Twenty-seven million people in Britain watched, and many families bought their first TV just for that day.
Her reign lasted seventy years.
She worked with fifteen prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to Liz Truss, and visited over a hundred countries.
She never lost her love of horses, and over the years she owned more than thirty corgis.
In 2015 she became the longest-reigning monarch in British history.
In 2022 Britain celebrated her seventy years on the throne.
Elizabeth the Second died at Balmoral, in Scotland, on September 8, 2022.
She was ninety-six.
Back in 1947, on her twenty-first birthday, the young princess had made a promise on the radio:
'My whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.' It was long, and she kept her word.
