Baudouin (French: Baudouin Albert Charles Léopold Axel Marie Gustave de Belgique or Dutch: Boudewijn Albert Karel Leopold Axel Marie Gustaaf van België) (7 September 1930 – 31 July 1993) reigned as King of the Belgians from 1951 to 1993. He was the eldest son of King Leopold III (1901-1983) and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden (1905-1935). Baudouin is the French form of his name, the form most commonly used outside Belgium; his Dutch nam...
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Baudouin (French: Baudouin Albert Charles Léopold Axel Marie Gustave de Belgique or Dutch: Boudewijn Albert Karel Leopold Axel Marie Gustaaf van België) (7 September 1930 – 31 July 1993) reigned as King of the Belgians from 1951 to 1993. He was the eldest son of King Leopold III (1901-1983) and his first wife, Princess Astrid of Sweden (1905-1935). Baudouin is the French form of his name, the form most commonly used outside Belgium; his Dutch name is Boudewijn. Very rarely, his name is anglicized as Baldwin.
Baudouin was born in Château de Stuyvenberg, near Laeken, Brussels, in Belgium. On 1 August 1950 his father King Leopold III requested the Belgian Government and the Parliament to approve a law delegating his royal powers to his son, Prince Baudouin, who took the constitutional oath before the United Chambers of the Belgian Parliament as Prince Royal on 11 August 1950. He ascended the throne and became the fifth King of the Belgians upon taking the constitutional oath on 17 July...
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