As Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, celebrates her 90th birthday today, here are nine interesting facts about her.
1. The Queen celebrates two birthdays! The anniversary of the day she was born on 21 April and her ‘official’ birthday in June.
2. The 63rd anniversary of her Majesty’s coronation will be marked on 2 June this year.
3. The Queen receives over 300 letters every day and boxes of official documents that she has a staff of people to help her read and sign.
4. Her Majesty became the longest-reigning British monarch on 9 September 2015 when she surpassed the reign of her great great grandmother, Queen Victoria.
5. Her Majesty is the only person in the UK who doesn’t legally need a driving licence and she can drive without a licence.
6. Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation was the first coronation to be televised.
7. The Queen is called “Lilibet” by her close family, a nickname she got as a little girl because she couldn’t pronounce her own name.
8. In Maori, an Eastern Polynesian language, Her Majesty is known as Kotuku, which means ‘white heron’ – a bird that symbolises grace, intelligence and longevity.
9. To celebrate her birthday, Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh started off the day with a walkabout in Windsor. Later this evening, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, Her Majesty will light the first of a chain of more than 900 beacons to mark her birthday.
The Queen has thanked her fans for their birthday wishes on her official Twitter account #Queenat90https://t.co/jxZf7My9iZ and sent her best wishes to those also celebrating their 90th birthdays saying: “I send my best wishes to those who are celebrating their 90th birthday…on this shared occasion, I send my warm congratulations to you.”
