LONDON— It was a day for the history books. But it was not in her majesty’s temperament to make much of a fuss.
On Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015, about 5:30 p.m., Queen Elizabeth II became the longest reigning monarch in Britain’s proud and often turbulent history, dating back more than a millennium to the days when kings and queens enjoyed absolute power.
Serving as sovereign for 23,226 days (about 63 years and 7 months), according to Buckingham Palace, Elizabeth surpassed Queen Victoria, her great-great-grandmother, a woman so powerful that she stamped an era with her name.
She has served longer than Henry VIII (37 years), longer than any of the King Richards, far longer than her own father, King George VI (15 years). She certainly reigned longer than King Edward VIII, her uncle, who abdicated after less than a year so he could marry Wallis Simpson, a divorced American.
Elizabeth was there before the Beatles, there as the nation coped with postwar rationing, there during what she called the “annus horribilis,” when the monarchy appeared threatened as three of her four children became separated or divorced in 1992. She was there in 1997, when a shocked nation mourned the untimely death of the late Princess Diana.
