Like almost every paper in Britain I'll give a shout-out to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who today became England's longest reigning monarch, surpassing Queen Victoria. Her reign has been 63 years and 200+ days, and likely a lot more to come as she certainly looks energetic and healthy for someone of her age.
A bit mind-boggling to think about it really. If you assume people maybe remember back to when they were around 4 or 5 years old I'd say around 85% of people in Britain have never known another monarch.
To put it into a Qatar perspective His Highness the Father Emir, Sheikh Hamad, was born the same year Elizabeth became Queen (1952). The Emir at the time was Sheikh Ali bin Abdullah Al Thani, and it was during his rule that Qatar started shipping out oil, which is when Qatar started developing its economy around petroleum. The Sheikh built the first medical facility in Qatar only five years before Elizabeth's reign and the first school was completed in 1949. Qatar has gone from such humble beginnings to the country it is today in roughly the same time-span as Queen Elizabeth's reign.
As for the Queen her reign is long but compared to world monarchs throughout history it is still modest. According to wikipedia her length of reign has just cracked into the top 50 in history (currently 48th). Heck, she's not even the longest-reigning monarch alive today -- the current King of Thailand's reign is about 6 years longer and still going. Still, I'm glad the Queen continues to be healthy and active, and I wish her many more years on the throne.
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