Only those Canadians aged 70 or older have ever lived during a time when our head of state was a king. And the last time there was a King named Charles (1685), Canada was still almost 200 years away from being a country. But this morning, we are all getting used to the idea of King Charles III.

For many, the death of Queen Elizabeth will go down as one of those days where you will always remember where you were when you heard the news. Regardless of one’s view of the monarchy as an institution, Elizabeth was widely admired personally. She made 22 official visits to Canada during her seven decades as Queen. And in our lead story today in The Conversation Canada, Thomas Klassen of York University points out “Canada became dramatically less anglophone and anglophile” during her time on the throne.

“In the 1950s, high-school students across English Canada waved the Union Jack, sang the royal anthem (God Save the Queen), said the Lord’s Prayer and cheered cadet corps dressed in British khaki,” he writes.

We’re devoting today’s newsletter to a collection of stories on the Queen and the British monarchy produced by the global network of The Conversation. There will be many more stories to follow in the days and weeks ahead as the inevitable debate will begin on the future of the monarchy here in Canada and elsewhere.