Margrethe II, in full Margrethe Alexandrine Thorhildur Ingrid (born April 16, 1940, Copenhagen, Den.), queen of Denmark since the death of her father, King Frederick IX, on Jan. 14, 1972.

Born a week after the Nazi invasion of Denmark, she spent the war years in Denmark and then attended school in Copenhagen. She continued her studies at the universities of Copenhagen, Århus in Jutland, Cambridge, the London School of Economics, and the Sorbonne. In 1953, following a change in the Danish constitution to permit female succession to the throne, Margrethe, the king’s eldest daughter, assumed the title of “throne heiress” (i.e., crown princess, although that title, in Denmark, had denoted the wife of a male heir to the throne).

As such, from her 18th birthday she regularly took part in meetings of the Council of State in preparation for her future regal duties. On June 10, 1967, she married Count Henri de Laborde de Monpezat, a French diplomat, who afterward took the title of Prince Henrik. Their first child, Crown Prince Frederik, was born on May 26, 1968, and a second son, Prince Joachim, on June 7, 1969.