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The U.K. will see festivities across the country to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, with an extra-long holiday weekend at the beginning of this month.
High-profile events have been organized as the monarch marks seven decades on the throne, the first time a British sovereign has reached that milestone.
Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams believes the occasion will allow the nation to pay tribute to the Queen's 70 years on the throne.
He told Newsweek: "This is a unique event in our history and there will be huge celebrations, organized with British precision. The worldwide interest in it will be enormous.
"It is an opportunity to pay tribute to the Queen, an iconic figure who has been a symbol of continuity in decades of change.
"This has been a troubled period for the royal family but, as with the Golden Jubilee after the royal family's travails in the 1990s, it will be a huge success."
How Old is Queen Elizabeth?
The Queen is 96-years-old, making her both the U.K.'s oldest monarch and the oldest reigning female monarch in world history.
The current sovereign overtook her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria as the longest-reigning female monarch in 2015. Victoria had served for 63 years and lived to the ripe age of 81.
Although her birthday is always marked publicly with events such as gun salutes, the Queen traditionally spends her actual birthday privately.
The Queen famously boasts two birthday celebrations annually: one on the actual date of her birth, and a second described as her "official" birthday.
Queen Elizabeth was born on April 21, 1926. Her second birthday date migrates every year but usually lands on the second Saturday in June.
The tradition for monarchs to have two birthdays was started by George II in 1748 and relates to the unreliability of the typically cold and wet U.K. weather.
The day itself will see a special Trooping the Colour ceremony, while the royal family will take to the balcony for the first time since the pandemic began in 2020.
When Was Queen Elizabeth's Coronation?
Elizabeth was 11 years old when she saw her father King George VI crowned king at London's Westminster Abbey on May 12, 1937.
On June 2, 1953, Elizabeth's own coronation took place, at the still-tender age of 27.
Queen Elizabeth had already been the de facto monarch and head of the royal family for more than a year, following King George's death at 56 from coronary thrombosis.
Elizabeth was in Kenya when she heard the news and consequently became the first sovereign in more than two centuries to accede to the throne while abroad.
June 2022's Jubilee will celebrate Queen Elizabeth's official birthday and her 70 years as the sovereign of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Professor Anna Whitelock, Dean, School of Arts and Social Sciences at City, University of London, believes the Queen has curated a lasting legacy.
She told Newsweek: "A woman like no other, a queen like no other: both statements are demonstrably true.
"Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning British monarch, and, over the course of her record-breaking reign, has been a wife, mother, sister, grandmother, great grandmother.
"Over 70 years, Elizabeth II has become the most famous person in the world, known almost everywhere, as simply, 'The Queen': enigmatic yet so too, innately charismatic.
"Cultural icon, yes, fashion icon very probably, feminist icon maybe not. She has undoubtedly been a woman in a man's world, never more so when she became queen, at just 27 with Winston Churchill as Prime Minister.
"It would be more than a quarter of a century before Margaret Thatcher would become the first female prime minister. Certainly, the Queen has been a prominent figure on the world stage, a diplomat, although with an influence unrecorded and largely unknown.
"She has traveled more widely than any other monarch and, over the course of her reign, heads of state across the globe have relished time with her: she has a star quality."
