UK's Queen Elizabeth II Celebrates 70 Years on the Throne

This year's ascension anniversary is going to be the first the monarch will spend without her husband who died in 2021.

On 6 February, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II celebrates the 70th anniversary of her ascension to the throne.

While the Queen typically chooses to mark the day at Sandringham, the estate where her father King George VI died, this year's anniversary is going to be the first she will spend without her husband who passed away last year.

"There isn't really a template for celebrating a British monarch's 70-year reign, because it's not happened before", BBC royal correspondent Sean Coughlan noted last month.

Hello! magazine's royal correspondent Danielle Stacey also observed that the Queen prefers to spend that day "privately, given that it also marks the anniversary of her father King George VI's death", and is "rarely seen in public on the anniversary of her accession".

This is a 2 June 1953 file photo of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, as they wave to supporters from the balcony at Buckingham Palace, following her coronation at Westminster Abbey in London.

© AP Photo / Leslie Priest, File

On the eve of Ascension Day, the Queen hosted a reception at Sandringham as she started her Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

During the reception, the monarch cut a special cake that was decorated with the emblem of the Platinum Jubilee and was given gifts. The event was attended by representatives from local charities.

One of the guests at the reception was Angela Wood, the person who helped create the original recipe for Coronation Chicken, "which was made in 1953 as Britain celebrated when the monarch was crowned at Westminster Abbey", as Reuters put it.

On 6 February 1952, then-Princess Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip were in Kenya on the first stop of a royal tour when news came in that King George VI had died.

In this 1 September 1972 file photo, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip pose at Balmoral, Scotland, to celebrate their Silver Wedding anniversary. Prince Philip, the irascible and tough-minded husband of Queen Elizabeth II who spent more than seven decades supporting his wife in a role that both defined and constricted his life, has died, Buckingham Palace said Friday, 9 April 2021.

© AP Photo

With the tour immediately cancelled, the princess returned to England and, after a meeting of the Accession Council, officially took up the title of Queen.