Queen Elizabeth II was the world’s oldest head of state
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When Elizabeth II was crowned on June 2, 1953, the United Kingdom was barely emerging from the interminable post-war rationing, the coal mines were running at full capacity, television was stammering and London was still the capital of a planetary empire. . Dwight Eisenhower has just moved to the White House, Winston Churchill is the host of Downing Street, and Vincent Auriol that of the Elysée. It is an understatement to say that the queen will have gone through the ages. Arrived on the throne at the time of steam trains, bakelite telephones and marriage for life, she will have traveled supersonic, tweeted, and three of her four children have divorced.
Coming out crowned from Westminster Abbey, the new queen is propelled to the head of 46 countries, all of which are now independent. The UK, which defeated Nazism, nationalized energy and created an entirely free health service, still thinks of dominating the world, and the coronation of the 26-year-old sovereign is seen as the start of a new age Elizabethan gold.
The queen disappears after having accompanied the innumerable mutations of a country often at the forefront of musical or scientific innovation, at the center of a Commonwealth of 52 countries, whose language dominates the world, but which is now seeking its way after having left the European Union. Dead at the age of 96, Elizabeth reigned for years.
She was the head of state not only of the United Kingdom, but of fifteen other Commonwealth countries, including Australia, Canada, the Bahamas and Papua New Guinea. By 2015, her reign had outlived that of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. The death in 2016 of the king of Thailand after seventy years of reign had made her the oldest monarch and the oldest head of state in the world.
After having “buried” Churchill, De Gaulle and Kennedy, she had survived Thatcher, Jean-Paul II and Mandela
After having “buried” Churchill, De Gaulle and Kennedy, it had survived Thatcher, Jean-Paul II and Mandela. During her reign, she will have made nearly 300 visits abroad. According to her biographer Robert Hardman, Elizabeth II met 4 million people during the countless “commitments” she honored as so many imperative duties. A charge that she had solemnly pledged to fulfill from the age of 21 in a speech delivered in 1947 in Cape Town (South Africa): “I will devote my whole life, long or short, to your service and to the service of the great Imperial family to which we belong. » An oath to “serve” that she had renewed in 2012, during the celebration of her diamond jubilee.
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