born June 10, 1921, Corfu, Greece

husband of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

On February 28, 1947, Philip became a British subject, renouncing his right to the Greek and Danish thrones and taking his mother's surname, Mountbatten. (His father's family name had been Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.) His marriage to his distant cousin Princess Elizabeth (Elizabeth II) took place in Westminster Abbey on November 20, 1947. On the eve of his wedding, he was designated a royal highness and was created a Knight of the Garter, Baron Greenwich, earl of Merioneth, and duke of Edinburgh. He continued on active service with the Royal Navy, commanding the frigate Magpie, until Elizabeth's accession on February 6, 1952, from which time he shared her official and public life. Since then, Philip has attended an average of 350 official engagements a year on behalf of the royal household.

In 1957 she conferred on him the dignity of prince of the United Kingdom, and in 1960 his surname was legally combined with the name of her family—as Mountbatten-Windsor—as a surname for lesser branches of the royal family. His outspoken right-wing views, the public expression of which he has sometimes found hard to resist, have occasionally embarrassed a monarchy trying to put aside its traditional upper-crust image. While much of his time was spent fulfilling the duties of his station, Philip engaged in a variety of philanthropic endeavours. He served as president of the World Wildlife Fund from 1981 to 1996, and his International Award program allowed more than six million young adults to engage in community service, leadership development, and physical fitness activities.