Today marks the Death Anniversary of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth II’s grandmother, who died on this day in 1953! The only daughter of Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge and the Duke of Teck on she was first engaged to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, and after his death married his younger brother, then the Duke of York, in 1893. The couple had six children: the Duke of Windsor, King George VI, Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood, the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent, and Prince John. After an increasing round of Tours and Duties as Prince and Princess of Wales, in 1910, he succeeded his father as King George V, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, becoming the only British Monarch to be crowned Emperor in India. The King’s Reign saw the rise of communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, the Indian independence movement, Dominion Nations, and the first Labour Government as well as the catastrophic First World War, which saw the fall of many European Monarchies, but the rebranded House of Windsor emerged more popular, with the British Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent. Queen Mary was widowed in 1936, and lived through the reigns of two of her sons, King Edward VIII and King George VI, as well as the Second World War. A symbol of regal decorum and stability to the end, she died on this day in 1953, just months before the Coronation of her granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II.