The World of Royalty's 16th anniversary

The World of Royalty is sixteen years old today! The main website (located since early 2001 at Royalty.nu) started on Geocities on April 17, 1998.

A lot has changed since then. Bahrain, Belgium, Bhutan, Cambodia, Jordan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Monaco, Morocco, the Netherlands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tonga, and the UAE all have different monarchs and/or royal heads of state than they did in 1998. Nepal's monarchy was abolished in 2008. Samoa also ceased to be a monarchy after the 2007 death of its royal head of state.

Above: Britain's Prince Charles (center) with Nepal's Queen Aishwarya and King Birendra in 1998. (Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)

Only Brunei, Denmark, Japan, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Norway, Oman, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Thailand, and the UK have the same monarchs as they did when the World of Royalty was born. (This list does not include Commonwealth countries where Elizabeth II is head of state.)

From my perspective, the biggest royal news story of the past 16 years was probably the 2001 massacre of the royal family of Nepal. However, the biggest events in terms of web traffic to the Royalty.nu site were the 2002 funeral of Britain's Queen Mother and, of course, the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Above: Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother with her daughter Princess Margaret in 2000. (Photo: SUNDAY MIRROR/AFP/Getty Images)

So much has happened in 16 years — I'm not even going to try to cover it all in one blog post! — but every royal watcher can easily compile his or her own list. Births, deaths, abdications, and let's not forget royal weddings, including the weddings of: Philippe/Mathilde, Charles/Camilla, Mary/Frederik, King Letsie/Queen 'Masenate, Albert/Charlene, Mohammed VI/Lalla Salma, Haakon/Mette-Marit, Willem-Alexander/Maxima, Felipe/Letizia, Victoria/Daniel… Who did I leave out?

I can't end this post without thanking the World of Royalty's loyal visitors. As I've always said, the site would not exist without you. So thank you, and I hope you'll continue to enjoy exploring the world of royalty.

Monarchs from around the world attend a luncheon at Windsor Castle in England on May 18, 2012. (Photo by John Stillwell – WPA Pool/Getty Images)