Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
(Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark)
1921 – 2021
Philip was born in Greece into the Greek and Danish royal families. Educated in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, he joined the British Royal Navy in 1939 and began corresponding with the thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth.
During the Second World War, he served with distinction in the Mediterranean and Pacific Fleets. After the war, Philip was granted permission by George VI to marry Elizabeth. He abandoned his Greek and Danish titles and became a naturalized British subject, adopting his maternal grandparents’ surname Mountbatten.
He married Elizabeth in 1947.
Philip left active military service when Elizabeth became queen in 1952, having reached the rank of commander, and was made a British prince in 1957.
Philip and the Queen had four children: Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.
Prince Philip was a sports enthusiast, a patron, president, or member of over 780 organizations, and he served as chairman of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, a self-improvement program for young people aged 14 to 24. He was the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch and the longest-lived male member of the British royal family. He retired from his royal duties on 2 August 2017, aged 96, having completed 22,219 solo engagements since 1952.
Philip died on 9 April 2021, at the age of 99, just two months from his 100th birthday.
Source: Wikipedia
