Queen Victoria's reign covered most of the 19th century and most of the British Empire's peak. Roughly how long did she actually reign?
Victoria took the throne on 20 June 1837, aged 18, and died on 22 January 1901 at age 81. Elizabeth II's 70-year reign (1952–2022) eventually overtook her. Victoria's 63 years cover the Industrial Revolution's mature phase, the Crimean War, the Indian Rebellion, the Scramble for Africa, the Boer Wars, and the deaths of nine successive prime ministers. She married her first cousin Prince Albert in 1840 and went into formal mourning when he died in 1861 — and stayed there, in black, for the remaining 39 years of her reign.
Read the full facts →Queen Victoria (1819–1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1837 to 1901 and Empress of India from 1876. Her 63-year, seven-month reign — the longest of any British monarch before Elizabeth II — coincided with the British Empire's territorial maximum, the Industrial Revolution's mature phase, and the political-cultural period subsequently called *Victorian*.
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