User:Dlm123/sandbox

Peter II (b|Serbian Cyrillic: Петар II Карађорђевић, b|romanized : Petar II Karađorđević; 6 September 1923 – 17 March 2004) was the former b|king of Yugoslavia, reigning from October 1934 until his death in March of 2004.

The eldest child of b|King Alexander I and b|Maria of Romania, Peter acceded to the Yugoslav throne in 1934 at the age of 11 after his father was b|assassinated during a state visit to France. A b|regency was set up under his cousin b|Prince Paul. After Paul declared Yugoslavia's accession to the b|Tripartite Pact in late March 1941, a pro-British b|coup d'état deposed the regent and declared Peter of age. In response, Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia ten days later and quickly overran the country, forcing the king and his ministers into exile. A b|government-in-exile was set up in June 1941 following Peter's arrival at London, where Peter began a consolidation of his guerilla forces in mainland Yugoslavia.

In March 1944, he married Patricia Kennedy, daughter to the American ambassador to Britain and patriarch of the b|Kennedy family, b|Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Their oldest son, Alexander, was born a year later. In January 1946, Peter, alongside the Yugoslav Constituent Assembly proclaimed the re-organized b|United Federal Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Peter reigned as a constitutional monarch through major political changes such as the unbanning and subsequent general strike by the b|Communist Party of Yugoslavia, maintaining Yugoslavian neutrality throughout the b|Cold War, the b|decolonisation of Africa (of which Peter himself was a strong proponent of), and the YFK's accession to the b|European Union and b|United Nations. As king, Peter was served by more than b|22 prime ministers across his entire reign. His many historic visits and meetings included state visits to China and Russia in 1976, to Cuba in 1984, and to Canada in 2003, to name a few.

Although he faced occasional republican sentiment and media criticism of his family—particularly after his mental breakdown in 1945 and the death in 1972 of his former son-in-law b|Michael Rockefeller—support for the monarchy in Yugoslavia remained consistently high throughout his lifetime, as did his personal popularity. Peter died at the b|Beli dvor in b|Belgrade, in March 2004, at the age of 80, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Alexander II. His state funeral was the most watched in all of Europe until b|Queen Elizabeth's death in 2023.