Queen Elizabeth II died at the great age of 96, and it’s incredible to think that 70 of those years were as monarch to a number of realms.
Being queen for so long meant that Elizabeth took part in many historical events, and met millions of people from all walks of life. In doing so, the British sovereign notched up some pretty impressive stats.
So to mark her passing, we thought we’d share just some of the amazing figures associated with the nonagenarian:
- The Queen could cut lines in airports due to the fact she had no passport.
- The Queen’s daily schedule was shared a few years ago in which her activities were noted. Every day she followed a routine that saw her do 2 hours of correspondence in the morning, and look through her “red box” that her private secretaries prepared for her. In the box were all the important mail and the government papers that she needed to study and sign. She took one day off a year from looking at the red box, and that was Christmas Day.
- She had two birthdays! One was her actual birthday on April 21, and the other was later in June when she took part in Trooping the Colour, a 260 year-old tradition whereby the sovereign’s birthday was celebrated by parading troops.
- There is some trivia that is just slightly crazy, but also not surprising of the the royal family. According to various reports, Her Majesty had a bath drawn for her every day that was precisely 7 inches deep.
- During the Queen’s reign, seven popes sat on Peter’s Chair. Elizabeth actually met four while queen, and she met Pope Pius XII a year before she ascended to the throne.
- However, the Queen also met many other heads of state, including 13 out of the last 14 sitting U.S. presidents. (We’re not sure why she never met Lyndon Johnson.)
- It’s widely known that Elizabeth II was a big dog fan. She apparently had over 30 corgis in her lifetime — a breed of dog she was particularly fond of. She had 4 dogs when she passed away, two dorgis (a dachshund and corgi mix), a corgi, and a new Cocker spaniel.
- Considering the U.S. celebrated 246 years as a nation this year, Elizabeth was queen for just under a third of the time it has existed!
- Elizabeth II met her fair share of politicians, including the 171 prime ministers in her various realms over 70 years, 15 being in the United Kingdom. When her reign began she was head of 32 realms, this diminished to 15 in some rather far flung places, such as Australia and New Zealand.
- Part of her daily routine included looking at some of the 300 letters she received each day.
- One of the main roles of the sovereign was to lend her support to worthy causes, something she took very seriously. She was actually patron or president of more than 600 charities, but with her advancing years, she handed over the reins to other members of the royal family.
- Hats off to her majesty for donning over 5,000 head pieces during her reign, in a multitude of colors. The Queen saw her hat as a uniform, so was very rarely seen without one, or at least another headpiece, such as her rather heavy Imperial State Crown that weighs 2.3 pounds.
- The Queen visited 117 different countries, and by the time she stopped traveling abroad, she had clocked 1,032,513 miles, which is the equivalent of circumnavigating the world 42 times.
- The Queen shook hands with countless individuals, although one Reddit poster tried to make an educated guess that would put it past 1 million people. However, there have been some handshakes that have been particularly symbolic, such as the time she controversially shook hands with former IRA commander, Martin McGuinness, in 2012 — a gesture that showed the world that serious attempts at peace and forgiveness were being made.
And today we celebrate...