14 Pictures of Queen Elizabeth's Record-Breaking Reign

12th September 1937: the royal family on the balcony at Buckingham Palace after the coronation of King George VI (1895 - 1952). He is with Queen Elizabeth (1900 - 2002), Princess Elizabeth (waving) and Princess Margaret (1930 - 2002). (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Queen Elizabeth has always been proud of her position as the head of the British Armed Forces. Here, Princess Elizabeth, accompanied by Princess Margaret (left) and the Queen Mother (right), meets members of the Grenadier Guards.

The Queen Mother’s trips to the working-class East End of London to boost morale during the Blitz were a deep source of inspiration for the future queen. Here, Princess Elizabeth trains as a mechanic in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1945.

The 1947 marriage between Prince Philip of Greece, aka the Duke of Edinburgh, and “Lilibet,” as he called her, was a true love match, not a dynastic arrangement. Here they are in 1951, with children Charles and Anne.

Princess Elizabeth leaves Buckingham Palace for her coronation at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953.

Decked out in a white lace dress and cartwheel-style straw hat, Her Majesty sashays to a garden party in Sydney during her first state visit to Australia in February 1954.

The queen has a special affection for Canada, which, unlike Australia, has shown no signs of the Republican sentiment that seeks to remove her as titular head of state. Here she is at age 33 with the Duke of Edinburgh in Ottawa, Ontario.

The queen without her corgis is like whisky without soda. Her father introduced the future monarch to corgis when he brought home “Dookie” in 1933. The queen has owned more than 30 Pembroke Welsh corgis. Here, she is shown in 1969.

The queen is famous for her love of horses and never misses the British Derby at Epsom, especially if one of her own racehorses is on the card. Here, she is shown chatting to junior show jumpers at Windsor Castle in 1979.

Unlike her own marriage, Elizabeth's son Charles’s marriage to Diana Spencer was a dynastic match organised by palace genealogists. Future rifts seem foreshadowed in the tense body language of this 1982 photo.

“I must be almost the only person who wears hats constantly,“ the queen wrote to royal milliner Philip Somerville who, before his death in 2014, decked her out in hats for a quarter of a century. Here she is in 2009.

Contrary to her public persona, which can sometimes appear stiff and aloof, the queen is known in private for her impish sense of humour. Here, she enjoys a sack race at the Braemar Gathering in Scotland in 2012.

The queen in 2007, leaving the State Opening of Parliament, resplendent in ermine and the Diamond Diadem made in 1820 for her Hanoverian ancestor, George IV.

The annus horribilis of 1992, when her children’s marriages fell apart, and the gruesome death of Princess Diana five years later, seem a long way off in this happy family portrait, taken in 2014 at Buckingham Palace.