Philip (of the United Kingdom)

Philip (of the United Kingdom), born in 1921, husband of Elizabeth II, queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Born on June 10, 1921, on the Greek island of Corfu, Philip is the son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenburg, and is a great-great-grandson of Britain’s Queen Victoria. He spent his childhood in Britain at the home of his uncle, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and began a naval career in 1939, when he entered the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. He served in both the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters during World War II (1939-1945) and married the then Princess Elizabeth in 1947, at which time he was named Duke of Edinburgh; in 1957 he was created Prince of the United Kingdom. Prince Philip, an active advocate of sports, science, and education, has made many goodwill trips throughout the world, both as representative of, and in company with, Queen Elizabeth. He was the first president of the World Wildlife Fund-UK, a conservation organization, from 1961 until 1981, and later served as international president of the World Wildlife Fund from 1981 until 1996.