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Queen Elizabeth will become officially become the longest serving monarch in British history this week, beating out her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria to take the title. During her almost 64-year-long reign, the queen has seen a remarkable amount of change in the world, but perhaps no change has greater affected her life than the remarkable decline of the British Empire.
When Elizabeth was crowned in 1952, the Britain still had a real empire, with more than 70 overseas territories. Even then, however, it was clear that the situation could not last. India, often declared "the jewel in the crown" for the Empire, had won its independence just five years before. In 1952, British troops were fighting independence movements in Egypt and Kenya. They would go on to lose both, and many others.
By 1979, the British empire was reduced to a few pockets around the world. The shrinking didn't stop, however. When Hong Kong was transferred to China in 1997, Queen Elizabeth's son Prince Charles himself dubbed it the "end of the Empire." In 2015, Britain has 14 overseas territories left. Outside of Britain's land in the Antarctic, which is vast but mostly unpopulated, the largest remaining British overseas territory is the Falkland Islands. At 4,700 square miles, the islands are a little smaller than Connecticut.
It's a far cry from the days when the sun never set on the Empire: In 1921, at the empire's peak, the British ruled around a quarter of the land on Earth. However, there is a small silver lining for Queen Elizabeth: She remains the monarch in 15 Commonwealth nations in addition to Britain.
Queen Elizabeth presided over post World War I world which saw former World Powers leaving their colonies to self rule. In 1941 Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt signed the Atlantic Charter of Allied War Aims, whereby Britain effectively chose to dismantle the empire for the sake of championing “the rights of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live”. Once the war had been won Europe’s preeminence in the world was at an end.
Britain’s retreat from empire was punctuated also with economic crisis. National bankruptcy was only narrowly averted by securing a loan of $4.3 billion from the US (the equivalent of $56 billion today), the last installment of which was only repaid in 2006. Whereas the UK was still responsible for 25% of world exports in 1950, this number shrank to 9% in 1973; during this same period the UK had the lowest growing per capita GDP in Europe, less than half the rate of West Germany.
However the former British empire countries in Asia saw a slow increase in prosperity and western outlook after independence. The population in this part of the world grew during the stable British monarchy and the socialist support from elite UK establishments. Even the American support for these socialist policies and support of such world wide organizations saw great increase in democracy and free trade in these countries. The former colonies of Canada and Australia saw a big jump in population and economy. However African parts were still mired in autocracy, zenophobia, hate against former colonials, poor public health, black-white clashes etc.. causing some unfortunate events.
Over all, the term of Queen Elizabeth saw the slow descent of the greatest Empire on the earth to become a local power. The Anglo-American and French loose coalition currently providing some of the top world advices might still see another century of power before the rising African nations might upset the existing powers
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