Charles III
King of the United Kingdom since 2022 (born 1948)
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms.
Charles is the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He was born during the reign of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, and became heir apparent following his mother's accession in 1952. Charles was created Prince of Wales in 1958 and his investiture was held in 1969. He was educated at Cheam School and Gordonstoun, and later spent six months at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia. After completing a history degree at the University of Cambridge, he served in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1976. He married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 and they had two sons, William in 1982 and Harry in 1984. Charles and Diana divorced in August 1996 after years of estrangement and well-publicised extramarital affairs. Diana died the following year from injuries sustained in a car crash. In 2005, Charles married his long-time partner, Camilla Parker Bowles.
The public source identifies “Charles III” as king of the United Kingdom since 2022 (born 1948). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Charles, King and United.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Charles III”, the useful work is to connect “king of the United Kingdom since 2022 (born 1948)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q43274. VIAF identifies the subject as 84034215. The Library of Congress control number is n78089005. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1952, 1958 and 1969.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles III” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.