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Lord, Receive the Queen
Her First Prime Minister was Winston Churchill and her last was Liz Truss. There were 15 in all during the incredible 70 years of her reign, the longest reign of a single monarch in the history of the United Kingdom. When the Queen ascended the throne, Stalin was living out his last months in the Kremlin, and the world was sinking deeper into the Cold War era. In some parts of the world, though, the Cold War was already in its hot phase. The war in Korea had been going on for two years, and Her Majesty’s ship Belfast, was sending out its 6-inch salvos against an invisible enemy. After the Iron Curtain finally fell over Europe, the Queen discovered her talents as a successful diplomat and politician. She was the first British monarch to visit post-war Germany, paying tribute to the Germans’ success in restoring the economic and political strength of their state. This was in 1965, when a British royal entered German soil for the first time since 1913.
Fourteen US presidents have occupied the Oval Office during the Queen’s reign. The first was Harry Truman, whom Elizabeth met her first visit to the United States in 1951, while she was still a princess; the most recent is current president Joe Biden. He visited Windsor Castle in 2021, but first met the Queen in 1982, while he was a senator.
Later the Queen also became the first monarch to visit Russia after the 1917 Revolution. It was in 1994 that…