Queen Juliana of the Netherlands (Juliana Emma Louise Wilhelmina van Oranje-Nassau) (April 30, 1909 – March 20, 2004), Princess of Orange-Nassau, Duchess of Mecklenburg, Princess of Lippe-Biesterfeld, was Queen of the Netherlands from her mother's abdication in 1948 to her own abdication in 1980 and Queen Mother (with the title of Princess) from 1980 to 2004. On April 30, 1927, Princess Juliana celebrated her eighteenth birthday. Under the constitution, she had officially come of age and was entitled to assume the royal prerogative, if necessary. Two days later her mother installed her in the "Raad van State" ("Council of State"). A young, shy and introvert woman of plain features whose religious mother would not allow her to wear makeup, Juliana did not fit the image of a royal princess. She would, nonetheless, become much loved and respected by most of the Dutch people. In the same year, the princess enrolled as a student at the University of Leiden. In her first years at university, she attended lectures in sociology, jurisprudence, economics, history of religion, parliamentary history and constitutional law. In the course of her studies she also attended lectures on the cultures of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles, the Charter of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, international affairs, international law, history, and European law.[citation needed] She was also tutored privately by Professor C. Snouck Hurgronje on the Islamic religion, practised by most of the people in the Dutch colonies.

In line with the views of the times, Queen Wilhelmina began a search for a suitable husband for her daughter. It was difficult to find a Protestant prince from a ruling family who suited the tedious and strictly religious Dutch Court. Princes from the United Kingdom and Sweden were "vetted" but either declined or were rejected by the Princess. After meeting His Serene Highness Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld at the 1936 Winter Olympics in Bavaria, Princess Juliana's royal engagement was arranged by her mother. Prince Bernhard was a suave young businessman and, although not a playboy, certainly a "man about town" with a dashing lifestyle.[citation needed] Princess Juliana fell deeply in love with her fiancé, a love that was to last a lifetime and that withstood the separation during the war and the many publicly known extra-marital affairs and children by the Prince.[citation needed] In a legal document that spelled out exactly what the German prince could and could not do, and the amount of money he could expect from the sole heir to the large fortune of the Dutch royal family, the astute Queen Wilhelmina left nothing to chance. The document was signed, and the couple's engagement was announced on September 8, 1936.

The wedding announcement divided a country that mistrusted Germany under Adolf Hitler. Prior to the wedding, on November 24, 1936, Prince Bernhard was granted Dutch citizenship and changed the spelling of his names from German to Dutch. They married in The Hague on January 7, 1937, the date on which Princess Juliana's grandparents, King William III and Queen Emma, had married fifty-eight years earlier. The civil ceremony was held in The Hague Town Hall and the marriage was blessed in the Great Church (St. Jacobskerk), likewise in The Hague. The young couple made their home at Soestdijk Palace, Baarn. The European political climate was already extremely tense from the growing threat of Nazi Germany and this was added to in the Netherlands when Hitler hinted that the Royal marriage was a sign of an alliance between the Netherlands and Germany. An angry Queen Wilhelmina quickly made a public denunciation of Hitler's remark but the incident caused further resentment over Juliana's choice for a husband. Further revelations of Prince Bernhard's past conduct added to the growing resentment amongst many of the Dutch people but after the German invasion on May 10, 1940, his actions would do a great deal to change public opinion to his favour.

During the war and German occupation of the Netherlands the Prince and Princess decided to leave the Netherlands with their two daughters for the United Kingdom. The Princess remained there for a month before taking the children to Ottawa, the capital of Canada, where she lived in Stornoway House in the suburb of Rockcliffe Park. Some people regard this as an act of cowardice of the government and the entire royal family, fleeing the country and leaving the Dutch people under Nazi occupation. On August 2, 1945 Princess Juliana was reunited with her family on Dutch soil. On her Silver Jubilee in 1973, Queen Juliana donated all of the money that had been raised by the National Silver Jubilee Committee to organisations for children in need throughout the world. She donated the gift from the nation which she received on her seventieth birthday to the "International Year of the Child."