Queen Elizabeth II

1926 – 2022

Elizabeth II reigned as Queen of the United Kingdom and head of the Commonwealth from 1952 until her death in 2022, the longest reign in British history. Her seventy-year tenure spanned the violent counter-insurgencies of late British decolonisation, including the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya from 1952 to 1960, in which her government ran a network of detention camps that subjected an estimated 80,000 to 150,000 Kikuyu civilians to torture and forced labour, and the Cyprus and Aden conflicts of the late 1950s and 1960s. Documents released under the British Government's 2013 Migrated Archive disclosure, and the 2013 Kenyan settlement in which the British government paid £19.9 million in compensation to 5,228 Mau Mau victims, were issued in her name as head of state, and she also signed off on the controversial royal protection extended to her son Prince Andrew during his association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM