With the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Joe Biden gained the distinction of being the 13th and final U.S. president to meet the woman whose reign spanned seven decades.
The queen, who died Thursday at her summer residence in Scotland at age 96, had met every American president since Dwight Eisenhower, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson, who did not visit Britain during his presidency.
She was still a princess when she met President Harry Truman in Washington.
Every living former U.S. president — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump — joined Biden in mourning her passing and sending condolences to her family.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden said the queen’s “legacy will loom large in the pages of British history, and in the story of our world.”
Obama and his wife, Michelle, recalled the queen welcoming them, America’s first Black president and first lady, to the world stage “with open arms and extraordinary generosity.”
Biden first met the queen in 1982 as a U.S. senator traveling in the U.K. with a delegation from Congress. He last saw her in 2021, several months after he became president, when he attended a world leaders’ summit in southwestern England.
