(CNN)Here's a look at the life of Angela Merkel, former chancellor of Germany.
Personal
Birth date: July 17, 1954
Birth place: Hamburg, Germany
Birth name: Angela Dorothea Kasner
Father: Horst Kasner, a Lutheran minister
Mother: Herlind Kasner, an English teacher
Marriages: Joachim Sauer (1998-present); Ulrich Merkel (1977-1982, divorced)
Education: University of Leipzig, B.S., 1978; German Academy of Sciences, Ph.D, 1986
Religion: Lutheran
Other Facts
Former Chancellor Helmut Kohl sometimes referred to her as "the girl."
She is a trained physicist.
Timeline
1978-1990 - Research associate at Zentralinstitut für Physikalische Chemie in Berlin.
1990 - Becomes press officer for Demokratischer Aufbruch (DA or Democratic Awakening).
December 1990 - Is elected to the German Bundestag.
1991 - Is named minister of Women and Young People by Chancellor Kohl and becomes deputy chairperson of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
1994 - Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
1998 - General secretary of the CDU.
April 10, 2000 - Becomes the first female chairperson of the CDU.
October 10, 2005 - Strikes a deal with Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats that will make her the first female chancellor of Germany.
November 22, 2005 - Is sworn in as the first female chancellor of Germany.
January 13 and 16, 2006 - Meets US President George W. Bush at the White House and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.
April 30, 2008 - Receives the Charlemagne Prize, the "Citizens' Prize for Services to European Unity."
June 26, 2009 - Makes first visit to the United States under President Barack Obama's administration.
September 27, 2009 - Is reelected chancellor of Germany.
February 15, 2011 - Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama.
June 17, 2011 - Meets with French President Nicolas Sarkozy to discuss a potential Greek bailout plan.
December 5, 2011 - Meets with Sarkozy to announce their proposed plan to impose fiscal discipline on members of the European Union.
September 22, 2013 - Is reelected chancellor of Germany.
October 25, 2013 - In the wake of reports that the US National Security Agency eavesdropped on her cell phone, an angry Merkel says, "true change is necessary," and "spying among friends is never acceptable."
December 17, 2013 - Is sworn in for a third term as chancellor of Germany.
June 12, 2015 - Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office says it has dropped a probe into allegations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the National Security Agency had bugged her phone. The office states there was insufficient evidence to launch a successful prosecution.
December 9, 2015 - Is named Person of the Year by Time magazine.
March 17, 2017 - Makes first visit to the United States under President Donald Trump's administration.
September 24, 2017 - Merkel wins a fourth term as German Chancellor, but her party's lead in parliament is cut to 33.5%, and the country faces a surge in support for the far right. The hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) becomes the third-largest group in the national parliament.
March 4, 2018 - The Social Democratic Party votes to renew a government coalition with Merkel's Christian Democrats, paving the way for her fourth term as chancellor and ending the almost half-year of political deadlock and painful negotiations.
April 27, 2018 - Makes her second state visit to the US since Trump has been in office.
October 29, 2018 - Announces she will not seek reelection when her term expires in 2021. That's after both her party and the Social Democrats suffered heavy losses in state elections in Hesse a day earlier, and after the Christian Social Union, or CSU -- the Bavarian sister party to the CDU -- lost its majority in the Bavarian state parliament on October 14.
June-July 2019 - Merkel is seen shaking in public three times in less than a month. "I am working through some things...which do not seem to be over yet, but there is progress and I have to live with it for a while," Merkel reveals, adding, "But I am very well and one does not have to worry."
March 18, 2020 - In a rare televised message, Merkel tells the German people that the coronavirus pandemic is the nation's gravest crisis since World War II.
December 2, 2021 - Germany's military honors Merkel with their highest ceremony for a civilian, the Grand Tattoo ceremony. Merkel will officially step down next week after 16 years in office.
April 17, 2023 - Receives the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement, Germany's highest federal honor.
Photos: Angela Merkel's life in pictures
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to delegates of her political party, the Christian Democratic Union, in 2018.
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Photos: Angela Merkel's life in pictures
Merkel was born in Hamburg, West Germany, in 1954, but she grew up in East Germany. Her father, Horst Kasner, was a Lutheran minister and her mother, Herlind, was an English teacher.
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Photos: Angela Merkel's life in pictures
Merkel, left, attends a New Year's Eve party with friends in Berlin in 1972. In 1977, at the age of 23, she married her first husband, Ulrich Merkel. They divorced in 1982, but she kept the name.
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Photos: Angela Merkel's life in pictures
Merkel poses with her siblings, Marcus and Irene Kasner.
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Photos: Angela Merkel's life in pictures
Merkel visits a children's home during her campaign to become a member of the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, in 1990. Before turning to politics, Merkel had trained as a physician. She was also a spokeswoman for the "Democratic Awakening," East Germany's opposition movement before reunification.
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A month after being elected to the Bundestag, Merkel was appointed to Germany's Cabinet in January 1991. Chancellor Helmut Kohl named her Minister for Women and Youth.
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Merkel looks at Kohl during a conference of the Christian Democratic Union, their political party, in 1991. At the time, Merkel was a deputy chairwoman for the party.
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Merkel changed Cabinet positions in 1994, becoming Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. Here, she visits a water-control station in Bad Honnef, Germany, in 1995.
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Merkel, as the country's leader on environmental issues, irons wrapping paper to show how it can be recycled.
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Merkel and Health Minister Horst Seehofer attend a Cabinet meeting in 1995.
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Merkel sits in a "strandkorb," or beach basket, in an undated photo. In 2000, Merkel became the Christian Democratic Union's first female chairperson. It was the opposition party at the time.
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Merkel, left, attends the opening of the Wagner Festival, an annual music festival in Bayreuth, Germany, in 2001.
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Merkel spends part of her summer in Langballig, Germany, in 2002.
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Merkel meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2002, one of many meetings they would have over the years. Merkel speaks Russian fluently, while Putin speaks German.
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Merkel speaks in Nuremberg, Germany, ahead of federal elections in 2005.
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Merkel is sworn in as Germany's first female chancellor in November 2005.
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Merkel visits the White House in January 2006. A few days later she also visited the Kremlin in Russia.
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US President George W. Bush shows off a barrel of pickled herrings he was presented after arriving in Stralsund, Germany, in July 2006.
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Merkel visits troops stationed in Turkey in February 2013. Later that year she was re-elected for a third term.
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Merkel and her husband, Joachim Sauer, walk with US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama before a dinner in Berlin in June 2013. Merkel and Sauer have been married since 1998.
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Merkel speaks to Obama on the sidelines of a G7 summit near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, in June 2015.
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Merkel was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2015. Time Editor-at-Large Karl Vick described her as "the de factos leader of the European Union" by virtue of being leader of the EU's largest and most economically powerful member state. Twice that year, he said, the EU had faced "existential crises" that Merkel had taken the lead in navigating -- first the Greek debt crisis faced by the eurozone, and then the ongoing migrant crisis.
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Photos: Angela Merkel's life in pictures
Merkel and Obama test a virtual-reality headset at a trade fair in Hanover, Germany, in April 2016.
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Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference at the White House in March 2017.
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Merkel raises her glass during a toast at the Trudering Festival in Munich, Germany, in May 2017.
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Merkel records her annual televised New Year's address in December 2017.
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In this photo provided by the German Government Press Office, Merkel talks with Trump as they are surrounded by other leaders at the G7 summit in June 2018. According to two senior diplomatic sources, the photo was taken when there was a difficult conversation taking place regarding the G7's communique and several issues the United States had leading up to it.
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Merkel attends a Bundestag session in June 2018. She pressed lawmakers to back a tough but humane asylum and migration policy for the European Union.
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In this handout photo provided by the German Government Press Office in July 2018, Merkel meets a newborn calf during a visit to the Trede family dairy farm in Nienborstel, Germany.
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Merkel offers flowers to Volker Bouffier, the state premier of Hesse and the deputy chairman of the Christian Democratic Union, ahead of a party leadership meeting in October 2018. The day before, her coalition government suffered heavy losses in a key regional election in Hesse.
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Merkel speaks at a debate on the future of Europe during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, in November 2018. Merkel made a call for a future European army and for a European Security Council that would centralize defense and security policy on the continent.
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Merkel touches the scepter of a Carnival prince during the annual Carnival reception in Berlin in February 2019.
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Merkel poses for photos with students as she visits a secondary school in Berlin in April 2019.
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Merkel talks with European Council President Donald Tusk and British Prime Minister Theresa May at a roundtable meeting in Brussels, Belgium, in April 2019. May was in Brussels to formally present her case for a short Brexit delay.
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Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by Prime Minister Theresa May, greets Merkel in Portsmouth, England, in June 2019. It was ahead of an event marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
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Merkel and new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky inspect a military honor guard as he arrives for his first official visit to Germany in June 2019. Merkel was seen shaking during the ceremony, but she later suggested dehydration was to blame and said that she was doing "very well."
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The hands of Merkel and Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne are seen as they listen to national anthems in Berlin in July 2019. Merkel's body visibly shook again, raising concerns over her health. She said she was fine and that she has been "working through some things" since she was first seen shaking in June.
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Raindrops cover the window of a car as Merkel arrives for the opening of the James-Simon-Galerie in Berlin in July 2019.
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In March 2020, Merkel delivered a rare televised message and told the German people that the coronavirus pandemic is the nation's gravest crisis since World War II.
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Merkel attends a wreath-laying ceremony at the Neue Wache Memorial in Berlin in May 2020. It was the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, otherwise known as Victory in Europe (VE) Day.
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Merkel and other world leaders look over documents during a European Union summit in Brussels, Belgium, in July 2020. Leaders agreed to create a €750 billion ($858 billion) recovery fund to rebuild EU economies ravaged by the coronavirus crisis.
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Merkel meets with US President Joe Biden at the White House in July 2021.
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Merkel receives a medal from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, during the opening of the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin in September 2021. The new center's purpose is to better track world health threats and help prevent future ones.
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Merkel feeds Australian lorikeets at the Marlow Bird Park in Marlow, Germany, in September 2021.
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A child gives Merkel a gingerbread heart with the inscription "Danke CDU," meaning "Thank you, CDU," during a Christian Democratic Union campaign event in Aachen, Germany, in September 2021. At left is Armin Laschet, Merkel's successor at the helm of the CDU, a long-time ally of the Chancellor and the party's deputy leader since 2012. He was one of the candidates who ran to replace her.
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