In 2014 LIFE.com chatted about the 1966 photos with Alexi Lalas, the former U.S. national team star and current TV commentator.

Of the third photo in the gallery, of Pelé in Liverpool, Lalas notes that the picture “really got me thinking about the aesthetics of the sport, and it’s a reminder of one attribute shared by most soccer players that helps explain why so many people adore the game. Namely—these guys are not huge. They’re not giants. They look, in a way, like you and me, and that guy sitting across the aisle on the train, or wherever. In Pelé’s case, you have probably the single most famous athlete on the planet at the time—but he’s not a seven-foot-tall basketball player, or a 300-pound defensive end. Still, seeing him here, there’s no question you’re looking at an athlete. The way he carries himself, his undeniable presence. Despite his unimposing stature, you can just sense his physical power.”

Not all of Rickerby’s photos from England in the summer of ’66, however, were of official World Cup matches. In fact, some of his best, most revealing work captured moments far from the sold-out stadiums in London, Sheffield, Manchester or Birmingham.

“Look at that shot,” Lalas said of English kids riveted by Brazil’s goalkeeper, Gilmar, leaping to block a shot during practice in Liverpool (the second photo ). “There’s no way those kids ever forgot watching those players, that close. Their body language shows how thrilled they are. And no wonder! There’s something about watching practice sessions that’s totally different—and better, in a way—than watching a big game. I remember training at Oakland University in Michigan before the World Cup in ’94. The fans who came out to watch us might remember that experience more fondly than watching the game we played in the Silverdome in Pontiac. There’s a reason baseball fans go to batting practice and spring training — the chance of a real, authentic interaction with the players, away from the hoopla around a game.”

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Bobby Moore raised the World Cup trophy, July 30, 1966, after England defeated Germany, 4-2, in the final before 98,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, London.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Brazil’s goalkeeper, Gilmar, leapt to block a shot during a World Cup practice in Liverpool, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Brazil great Pelé entered the stadium in Liverpool, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

British soccer fans, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Fans welcomed the Brazil squad to the stadium, Liverpool, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Pelé was tackled during Brazil’s 2-0 win over Bulgaria, England, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

English fans happily swarmed around the Brazilian squad’s bus, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

World Cup, 1966, England.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Wembley Stadium, World Cup, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

England celebrated a score, World Cup, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Commenting on this photo of England celebrating a goal, Alexi Lalas said, “If I could bottle the feeling that comes with scoring a goal in a big match, future generations of my family would never have to work another day in their lives.”

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Jack Charlton slid hard against West Germany, World Cup, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

England’s George Cohen vied with Argentina’s Silvio Marzolini during a World Cup quarterfinal match, 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

World Cup final, England vs. West Germany, July 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Fans, World Cup, England, July 1966.

Art Rickerby/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

World Cup 1966

Art Rickerby Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post LIFE at The 1966 World Cup, Featuring Pelé and England’s Triumph appeared first on LIFE.

She would go on to a decades-long career as an award-winning actress and an outspoken, fearless campaigner for human rights. Beyond her acting, Ms. Farrow has been a recurring figure in the news because of accusations by her adopted daughter, Dylan, that Woody Allen sexually abused her when she was a child, at a time when Allen and Ms. Farrow were in a long-term relationship. Woody Allen has always denied the charges, while Ms. Farrow has never wavered in her support of Dylan’s claims. Ms. Farrow is also the mother of Ronan Farrow, a journalist whose investigative reporting has been a driver of the #MeToo movement.

In that cover story from 1967, though, the photos are notably light, as Farrow freely clowned for the camera in many shots, and the focus of the story was on her youth, beauty, talent and mystery. As LIFE wrote:

There are these positive statements you can make about Mia Farrow: she is 22; she weighs 99 pounds; she is 5 feet 5 1/2 inches tall; she has less hair than Ringo Starr; she is annoyed that people in London mistake her for Twiggy; she is married to Frank Sinatra.

Beyond such unarguable specifics lies her shapeless world — a place of surmise so fascinatingly complex and maddeningly naive that Sinatra could fathom it only by marrying into it. And ever since the surprising match was made the public has been stuck on the nagging question, “What is Mia Farrow really like?”

The feature goes on to paint a picture of a whip-smart, self-deprecatingly funny daughter of Hollywood (her mother was the famous actress Maureen O’Sullivan, her dad was Oscar-winning writer and director John Farrow)—a woman barely out of her teens yet worldly enough to say of her superstar husband, Sinatra: “He’s an artist. He’s groovy, he’s kinky and—above all—he’s gentle.”

Here, LIFE.com features a series of photographs—most of them never published in LIFE—that feel, in more ways than we can count, as if they were made not only in another time, but in another world.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

Mia Farrow on the set of the film, A Dandy in Aspic, London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

On a lark in London, Farrow borrowed a construction lantern.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Farrow looked at off-beat antiques while searching for a gift for her husband, Frank Sinatra. She ended up buying him a $2,240 gazebo.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow in London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow in London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and A Dandy in Aspic co-star Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and A Dandy in Aspic co-star Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow in London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow in London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and A Dandy in Aspic co-star Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, Laurence Harvey and A Dandy in Aspic director Anthony Mann, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow mocked A Dandy in Aspic co-star Laurence Harvey for his long hair and the length of time he spent with make-up, when all she did was dab her own eyes.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Between scenes of A Dandy in Aspic, Mia wrestled with co-star Laurence Harvey

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and director Anthony Mann, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Farrow told director Anthony Mann, ‘I don’t want to be me on screen.’ Mann said of Farrow, ‘She’s marvelous—my main problem is not to change her an inch.”

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow with co-stars on the set of A Dandy in Aspic, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow on set, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow on the set of A Dandy in Aspic, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey on the set of A Dandy in Aspic, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey (left), 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow in Geneva, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

On Swiss estate of her friend Yul Brynner, Mia romped with his five-year-old daughter, Victoria.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Yul Brynner’s daughter, Victoria, Switzerland, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Yul Brynner’s daughter, Victoria, Switzerland, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow, Switzerland, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow on Lake Geneva in Switzerland, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow and Laurence Harvey, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow at home in London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Mia Farrow at home in London, 1967.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

At the Sinatras’ Grosvenor Square residence in London (other addresses: Paris, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Las Vegas), Mia Farrow wore Cardin original before the gala premiere of ‘Taming of the Shrew.’

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post Mia Farrow, 1967: Classic Photos of an Actress on the Rise appeared first on LIFE.

Here, LIFE recalls the Orient Express of the last century through photographs made by Jack Birns in 1950—wonderfully evocative, atmospheric pictures from a time when phrases like “the Iron Curtain” and “communist Bulgaria” were not only encountered in history books, but in newspaper headlines and in daily conversation.

A September 1950 issue of LIFE, in which some of the photos in this gallery first appeared, described the Orient Express of the middle part of the last century thus:

To mystery lovers there is no more romantic train in the world than the Orient Express, which runs between Paris and Eastern Europe. The white-haired lady spy of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes rode the Orient Express, and the crime of Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Calais Coach took place on it. Legend has built the train into a vehicle for skullduggery. But there is, in fact, good basis for its reputation. Only last February, on the Orient Express near Salzburg, Austria, Eugene Karpe, the U.S. naval attaché friend of [prominent American businessman later jailed for espionage in Hungary] Robert Vogeler, fell or was pushed to his death under mysterious circumstances.

The Istanbul train is called the Simplon-Orient because it uses the Simplon Tunnel to pass through the Alps. Americans cannot go all the way as they cannot get visas for Communist Bulgaria, and luxury accommodations are now more limited than in the 1930s. But . . . the trip is still a fascinating ride through a secretive world of diplomats and refugees. It also provides a look at fringes of the Iron Curtain which can be had no other way.

The Simplon-Orient Express alongside Lake Geneva, near historic Chillon Castle.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aboard the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Train station along the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Train station along the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

In Milan, a man handed a diplomatic packet through window.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aboard the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A train station along the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A Yugoslav inspector made a passport check as the train neared the Bulgarian border.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aboard the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A train station along the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A rail employee at a station along the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

At Sukovo, in east Yugoslavia, a young Serb held a dog at the station.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Greek soldiers boarded boxcars at Svilengrad to guard the train against Communist marauders who would sneak across the border from Bulgaria to join Red guerillas in Greece.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A train station along the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A train station along the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A train station along the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aboard the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aboard the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aboard the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aboard the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A train station along the route of the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Aboard the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Poster for the Simplon-Orient Express, 1950.

Jack Birns/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post Rail Romance: Riding the Orient Express appeared first on LIFE.

While the war was over, however, it was hardly forgotten. Neither Japan nor Germany was allowed to compete. (The third Axis power, Italy, sent more than 200 athletes to London, having wisely joined the Allies in the middle of the war after Mussolini was deposed and executed.) The Soviet Union, meanwhile, as LIFE told its readers in August 1945, “snubbed the whole show” hardly surprising, as the USSR had not sent athletes to an Olympiad since 1922, and would not do so until 1952.

But whatever ideological fault lines existed around the globe in the immediate aftermath of the war, the obvious and overriding emphasis in London in 1948 was the athletes, and the generally friendly, intense competition on display.

As LIFE put it in an article shortly after the ’48 Games ended:

For 17 days except for one night when there was trouble with the gas line the torch flamed brightly at Wembley, England.

The ceremonial dignity of the London Olympiad was no match for the neopagan histrionics which characterized Adolf Hitler’s 1936 spectacle in Berlin. But by athletic standards the show was superb, despite the fact that the weather was the worst in Olympic history (the sun shone only three days). The general decorum of competing athletes was admirable, and only a very slight international tension followed a disputed U.S. victory in the 400-meter relay.

The U.S. won 38 golds in 1948, followed by Sweden (16), France and Hungary (10 apiece). The United Kingdom won three gold medals.

Torchbearer Henry Allen Bishop, 1948 London Olympics.

Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

As 5,000 athletes massed on the infield of Wembley Stadium before a crowd of 82,000, the Olympic torch flared up for the first time on July 29, a few minutes after XIV Olympiad has been officially opened by King George VI. The huge delegations in front are the British and U.S. teams.

Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

After years of cancelled Olympics due to World War II, the Games were back on at Wembley Stadium, London, 1948.

William Sumits/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Distance champion Emil Zatopek of Czechoslovakia, running with his characteristic agonized expression, started the last lap in the 10,000 meters, where he set a new Olympic record in London, 1948. He received a gold medal and promotion from second to first lieutenant in Czech army.

Frank Scherschel/Life Picture Collection//Shutterstock

Swedish Henry Eriksson received congratulations after winning the 1500 meters in the driving rain at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London.

Ed Clark/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The Netherlands’ Fanny Blankers-Koen (foreground), who won four golds in at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, competed in a sprint heat.

William Summits/Life Picture Collection//Shutterstock

Hurdles champion Fanny Blankers-Koen (right) of Holland skimmed over last barrier in the 80-meter race inches ahead of Great Britain’s Maureen Gardner. Mrs. Blankers-Koen, 30-year-old mother of two children who cooks, knits, darns socks and does her training in between, also won the women’s 100-meter and 200-meter sprints and picked up a fourth medal by running on a victorious relay team, Summer Olympics, London, 1948.

Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jamaican athlete Herb McKenley, Summer Olympics, London, 1948.

William Sumits/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American pole vaulter Guinn Smith attempted (unsuccessfully) a world record jump at the summer Olympics, London, 1948.

Frank Scherschel/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Guinn Smith of U.S. won at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London the hard way— in a driving rain which caused vaulters’ hands to slip from bamboo poles and made Olympic record impossible. This photo shows Smith’s body is draped over bar as he fails on first try at winning height. Next time he made it.

Mark Kauffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Eventual decathlon winner, 17-year-old American Bob Mathias, waited for his turn at the pole vault, Summer Olympics, London, 1948.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Javelin throw winner Herma Baumer of Austria, London Olympics, 1948.

Frank Scherschel/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American diver Zoe Ann Olsen prepared for a springboard dive. She won silver in at the Olympics in London, 1948.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Swimming at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American springboard dive winners Zoe Ann Olsen (left), Vicki Manolo Draves (center) and Patty Elsener displayed their medals at the Summer Olympics in London, 1948.

Ed Clark/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Fanny Blankers-Koen (right) of the Netherlands after winning the 200-meter dash, Summer Olympics, London, 1948.

William Sumits/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Gaston Reiff of Belgium stood on the winner’s block after the 5,000 meters at the Summer Olympics in London, 1948.

Mark Kauffman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Members of the winning American crew (from UC-Berkeley) carried coach Ky Ebright on their shoulders, Summer Olympics, London, 1948.

Mark Kauffman/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post The First Post-WWII Olympics: London, 1948 appeared first on LIFE.

The Underground runs on 250 miles of track, almost half of which is, in fact, underground, and carries more than 3 million passengers every single day. For decades, it has played a central role not only in the daily lives of Londoners, but—like Big Ben, Tower Bridge and other landmarks and architectural marvels—has shaped non-Britons’ ideas of what London is. What it looks and feels like. The Tube has starred in books, movies and song. It is a cultural as well as an engineering touchstone, and was the model for virtually all the great subways that came after it.

In 1940, however, during the eight months of German bombing raids known ever after as the Blitz, the Tube witnessed what was (to borrow a phrase from Winston Churchill) its finest hour. As Luftwaffe bomber planes pummeled London and other British cities, often sparking urban fire storms that raged for days and, by the time the raids stopped, killed tens of thousands of civilian men, women and children, countless Londoners and people from the outskirts of the city sheltered every night far below, on the platforms of Underground stations.

The Hans Wild photograph here—which ran in the Dec. 30, 1940 issue of LIFE above the caption, “In cold and discomfort far below the hell above, London tries to sleep in its deep subways”—this Wild photo is a testament to what Churchill, in his inimitable way, called “the courage, the unconquerable grit and stamina” of the English. But there is nothing terribly romantic, high-minded or even noble about shivering a night away while an enemy tries to kill you, or lays waste to your city, or both.

There might be romance and nobility in that sort of scenario in retrospect, but even the most unconquerable and grittiest of Londoners would likely admit, by the fall and winter of 1940, that the core emotion most of them endured day and night was an anxiety that often veered into deep, chilling fear. But again, we’re all aware that true courage is not the absence of fear, but doing what needs to be done in the face of one’s fear. And by that definition, Churchill’s refrain — courage, grit, stamina — does, in fact, seem to neatly characterize the actions and the attitude of the English throughout the Blitz, and throughout the entire war. England was, after all, virtually on its own by December 1940, holding off a “Thousand-Year Reich” that had swept through western Europe with appalling ease. Britons were the last of the unconquered — until America entered the war almost a full year later, after Pearl Harbor, and the Axis tide truly began to roll back.

Finally, it’s worth noting that one of the single deadliest and most destructive Luftwaffe strikes against London happened on the night of December 29, 1940—one day before the date of the issue of LIFE in which Wild’s photo appeared. That night, German planes dropped thousands and thousands of incendiary and high explosive bombs on the English capital, destroying the center of London and setting off a firestorm so intense and terrifying it came to be known as the Second Great Fire of London.

As the fires raged, men, women and children huddled in multitudes down below the surface of the city, in the tunnels carved out a century before by a civilization that could not have imagined a bomber plane, much less the destructive power that one such plane could unleash in a single night. In a sense—a very real sense—the Tube saved London during the Blitz. For that alone, we should celebrate the Underground, as well as the vision that brought it to loud, tumultuous—and yet somehow very organized, very orderly, very English—life.

Londoners slept in the city’s Underground for protection during German bombing raids, 1940.

Hans Wild/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The post Down, Not Out, in London: LIFE in the Underground, 1940 appeared first on LIFE.

But in November 1947, when she wed Prince Philip (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark), Elizabeth allowed the world to glimpse, briefly, another side a less severe and less purely ornamental side of her life. In photographs made that day, Elizabeth looks like brides all over the world have looked, from time immemorial: a bit nervous, a bit self-conscious, a bit overwhelmed … and happy.

Here, LIFE.com offers a series of photographs—including some that did not originally run in LIFE—made by magazine staffers like Nat Farbman and Frank Scherschel. In an article that ran in the Dec. 1, 1947, issue of LIFE, meanwhile, the magazine’s editors took pains to remind readers that, two years after the end of the Second World War, England and Europe while on the mend from war’s ravages were still, in some regards, reeling from the aftereffects of the conflict.

What’s also so clearly evident in the language of the piece (below) is the enduring respect the magazine’s editors had for what England had achieved when, for a good part of World War II, the island nation had, in essence, stood alone. The verbiage might be over-the-top but the sentiment is straight from the heart.

In the ninth winter of Britain’s austerity the skies cleared for a brief moment last week. Shining through came a fleeting, nostalgic glimpse of an ancient glory and a little pang of hope for better days to come. The Princess the heir to the British throne was taking a husband, and some of the old pomp and pageantry sang out in the land.

[Almost] all of Europe’s vanishing royalty crowded into Westminster Abbey, wearing finery and jewelery which somehow had survived all disaster. It seemed that all of London turned out to see a drama which, if somewhat anachronistic, was nonetheless inspiring. The people crowded along Whitehall to see the procession…. At the Abbey they cheered the arrival of six kings, seven queens and numerous princes and princesses. Over loudspeakers they heard Princess Elizabeth say her vows. For hours they milled around the Palace hoping to see the newlyweds make an appearance on the balcony. Then, feeling somehow as happy as if it had been their own wedding day, they went home, with the quiet reassurance of goodness, tranquility and survival that the British throne means to Britain’s people.

Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after their wedding, Nov. 20, 1947.

William Sumits / LIFE Picture Collection

Original caption: “Traditional British reserve is cast aside by these revelers who dance in streets while others stake out claims for vantage points.”

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Original caption: “Choir boys who came by bus form a line outside Westminster Abbey.”

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Original caption: “Beefeaters adjust their uniforms.”

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Original caption: “Immaculate gentlemen-at-arms carry their brightly plumed headgear.”

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Original caption: “Premiere Jan Christian Smuts represents the Dominion of South Africa.”

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Original caption: “Queen and King of Denmark arrive.”

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Original caption: “The Countess Edwina, wife of Earl Mountbatten, is helped from her car.”

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Original caption: “Servants from the King’s household don gloves before entering the abbey.”

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Original caption: “An Ethiopian representative pauses before starting into the Abbey.”

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Crowds try to get a glimpse of the royal wedding, London, Nov. 20, 1947.

Nat Farbman / LIFE Picture Collection

Exterior of Buckingham Palace on the night of royal wedding, Nov. 20, 1947.

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip leave Westminster Abbey after their wedding, Nov. 20, 1947.

Frank Scherschel / LIFE Picture Collection

The marraige of Elizabeth and Philip. Royals on the balcony of Buckingham Palace: (l. to r.) King George VI, Princess Margaret Rose, unidentified, Princess Elizabeth, Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mother Mary after the wedding of Elizabeth and Philip, Nov. 20, 1947.

William Sumits / LIFE Picture Collection

The post Elizabeth and Philip: Photos From the Royal Wedding, 1947 appeared first on LIFE.