Crown Prince Carl Gustaf smiles at the camera shortly before his seventh birthday. His birth on April 30, 1946, was announced with a salute of 84 naval guns, leading his mother, the then Crown Princess Sibylla, to fall unconscious. His father died in a plane accident nine months later. The boy became Crown Prince at the age of four, after his great-grandfather died. He was crowned King in 1973.

The Queen was born as Sylvia Sommerlath on December 23, 1943, in Heidelberg. Her father was a member of the Nazi party and fled to Brazil after World War II. Silvia stayed in Germany and finished high school in Dusseldorf. Here, she shows tickets to the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. She was a hostess and interpreter for the event, and that's where she met Carl XVI Gustaf.

Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia Sommerlath married in the summer of 1976. The people of Sweden were thrilled and didn't mind Silvia's lack of royal roots. Silvia was already the third commoner to become Queen of Sweden. Along with her many ceremonial duties, she is involved in charities for disadvantaged children.

In 1973, Carl XVI Gustaf was crowned King of Sweden. Six years later, in March 1979, King Carl XVI Gustaf and his wife came for a state visit to West Germany for the first time. Along with the former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, the majesties also met Bavarian Prime Minister Franz-Josef Strauss (pictured right).

A new law was established in 1980 to allow their first-born daughter to become Queen one day, placing Crown Princess Victoria ahead of her younger brother in the succession. She married her personal athletic trainer, Daniel Westling, who's holding their baby daughter, Princess Estelle, in this picture from 2012. They now have two children.

Queen Silvia and King Carl XVI Gustaf had three children: Victoria, Madeleine and Carl Philip, pictured here in 1995 on Victoria's 18th birthday. The royal family is extremely popular in Sweden, contributing to the Swedes' acceptance of monarchy in the country.

If their first state visit took place during the Cold War in a divided Germany, the Swedish royal couple set foot in a completely different Germany on their second official visit in 1993. On April 28, they waved from the balcony of Berlin's town hall, the Rotes Rathaus.

Sweden and Germany have shouldered a large part of Europe's burden in the refugee crisis. Shortly before this third state visit, Queen Silvia declared her support for Angela Merkel's refugee policies. She recalled the long tradition of immigration established in her country.