80 fascinating facts about the Queen

1 Queen Elizabeth II is the 40th monarch since William the Conqueror obtained the crown of England.

2 In 2002, aged 76, the Queen was the oldest monarch to celebrate a Golden Jubilee. The youngest was James VI and I at 51.

3 Since 1952 the Queen has conferred more than 387,700 honours and awards.

4 The Queen has personally held more than 540 Investitures.

5 The Queen speaks fluent French and regularly uses it.

6 The Queen has received more than 3 million items of correspondence during her reign.

7 Around 1.1 million people have attended her garden parties at Buckingham Palace or the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

8 The Queen has given regular Tuesday-evening audiences to ten British prime ministers. The first was Winston Churchill (1951-55).

9 Tony Blair is the first prime minister to have been born during the Queen's reign. He was born in May 1953 - a month before her coronation.

10 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh introduced small, informal luncheon parties at Buckingham Palace to meet distinguished people from all professions, trades and vocations. The first was held on 11 May, 1956.

11 The Queen is patron of more than 620 charities and organisations.

12 The Queen has undertaken more than 256 official overseas visits to 129 different countries.

13 The Royal Yacht Britannia was launched by the Queen on 16 April, 1953 and was commissioned for service on 7 January, 1954. It was de-commissioned in December 1997.

14 The Royal Yacht Britannia was first used by the Queen when she embarked with the Duke of Edinburgh in 1954 at Tobruk, for the final stage of their Commonwealth Tour. The last time the Queen was on board Britannia for an official visit was on 9 August, 1997 for a visit to Arran.

15 The Queen has visited Australia 15 times, Canada 23 times, Jamaica six times and New Zealand ten times.

16 Since her accession to the throne in 1952, the Queen has visited Edinburgh nearly every year, staying in the Palace of Holyroodhouse during Holyrood Week.

17 During her reign, the Queen has received many unusual gifts, including live animals; among them jaguars and sloths from Brazil, and two black beavers from Canada.

18 The Queen has sent around 100,000 telegrams to centenarians in the UK and the Commonwealth.

19 The Queen has sent more than 280,000 telegrams to couples celebrating their diamond wedding anniversaries.

20 The Queen's real birthday is on 21 April, but it is celebrated officially in June. This monarch's tradition dates back to the reign of Edward VII, who felt that his November birthday was unsuitable for celebratory parades owing to the cold weather.

21 The Queen has attended 34 Royal Variety Performances.

22 The Queen has opened 15 bridges in the UK.

23 The Queen has given at least 91 state banquets.

24 Since 1952 the Queen has undertaken 78 state visits accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh.

25 The Queen has launched 23 ships in her lifetime. The first was HMS Vanguard which she launched, as Princess Elizabeth, on 30 November 1944 in Clydebank. The first ship which she launched as Queen was the Royal Yacht Britannia, also from Clydebank.

26 The Queen has sent about 37,500 Christmas cards.

27 The Queen has given out around 78,000 Christmas puddings to staff, continuing the custom of King George V.

28 Every year the Queen sends Christmas trees to Westminster Abbey, Wellington Barracks, St Paul's Cathedral, St Giles', Edinburgh, the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, Crathie Church and schools and churches near Sandringham.

29 The Queen learned to drive aged 19 in 1945 in the army.

30 As a young woman, the Queen was a Girl Guide and a Sea Ranger.

31 While a princess, the Queen travelled on the London Underground for the first time in May 1939.

32 The Queen is a keen photographer and enjoys taking photographs of her family. Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, is also a keen photographer and has taken a number of photographs of the Queen, including an official photograph for her Golden Jubilee in 2002.

33 The Queen was born at 17 Bruton Street, London W1, on 21 April, 1926, and was christened on 29 May, 1926 in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace.

34 With the birth of Prince Andrew in 1960, the Queen became the first reigning British sovereign since Queen Victoria to have a child.

35 The Queen has 30 godchildren.

36 The first football match the Queen attended was the 1953 Blackpool v Bolton FA Cup Final.

37 The Queen has taken the salute in every Trooping the Colour ceremony since the start of her reign, with the exception of 1955, when a national rail strike forced its cancellation.

38 The Queen has sat for 139 official portraits during her lifetime, two of which were with the Duke of Edinburgh. The most recent sitting was for Rolf Harris (2005).

39 The Queen sat for the first and only hologram portrait in 2003.

40 There have been 11 sculptures of the Queen. The most recent was in 2005 by Miss Angela Conner for St George's Chapel, Windsor.

41 The first "Royal walkabout" took place during the visit by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to Australia and New Zealand in 1970.

42 In 1969 the first television film about the family life of the Royal Family was made, and shown on the eve of the Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales.

43 An important innovation during the Queen's reign was the opening in 1962 of a new gallery at Buckingham Palace to display items from the Royal Collection. It was the first time that parts of the palace had been opened to the general public.

44 The only time the Queen has had to interrupt an overseas tour was in 1974, during a tour of Australia and Indonesia. She was called home when a general election was called suddenly.

45 The Queen has opened Parliament every year except 1959 and 1963, when she was expecting Prince Andrew and Prince Edward respectively.

46 The Queen went on her first state visit as Princess Elizabeth, to South Africa with her mother and father, in 1947. The tour included Rhodesia and Bechuanaland, Swaziland and Basutoland (now Lesotho).

47 The Queen's first Commonwealth tour in November 1953 included visits to Bermuda, Jamaica, Panama, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, the Cocos Islands, Ceylon, Aden, Uganda, Libya, Malta and Gibraltar.

48 The Queen was the first British monarch to go to China. She made the trip in 1986.

49 The Queen has made a Christmas broadcast to the Commonwealth every year of her reign except 1969.

50 In 1953, the Queen made the first Christmas broadcast from overseas, broadcasting live from New Zealand.

51 The Queen sent a message of congratulations to the Apollo 11 astronauts for the first Moon landing on 21 July, 1969. The message was micro-filmed and deposited on the Moon in a metal container.

52 The Queen has met the following astronauts at Buckingham Palace: Major Yuri Gagarin, Valentina Tereschkova, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.

53 The Queen sent her first e-mail in 1976, from an army base.

54 There have been six different Archbishops of Canterbury during the Queen's reign.

55 In 1982, when Pope John Paul II visited Britain, he was the first pope to do so in 450 years. The Queen, as titular head of the Church of England, received him at Buckingham Palace.

56 The Queen visited a mosque in the UK for the first time in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, in July 2002.

57 The Queen has attended 50 Royal Maundy services during her reign at more than 39 different cathedrals.

58 The Queen has owned more than 30 corgis during her reign, starting with Susan, who was a present for her 18th birthday in 1944. The Queen currently has five corgis, Emma, Linnet, Monty, Holly and Willow.

59 The Queen also introduced a new breed of dog known as the "dorgi" when one of the Queen's corgis was mated with a dachshund which belonged to Princess Margaret. The Queen currently has four dorgis: Cider, Berry, Candy and Vulcan.

60 As well as corgis and dorgis, the Queen also breeds and trains labradors and cocker spaniels at Sandringham. There is a special Sandringham strain of black labrador founded in 1911.

61 The Queen's first pony was a gift from her grandfather, King George V, when she was four. This was a Shetland pony called Peggy. The Queen continues to ride at Sandringham, Balmoral and Windsor.

62 Horses bred at the Royal studs over the last 200 years have won virtually every major race in Britain. The Queen has about 25 horses in training each season.

63 The Queen's racing colours are purple body with gold braid, scarlet sleeves and black velvet cap with gold fringe.

64 The Queen continues the Royal Family's long association with racing pigeons, which began in 1886 when King Leopold II of Belgium made a gift of racing pigeons to the Royal Family. The Queen is patron of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association.

65 The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were married on 20 November 1947 in Westminster Abbey. The Queen's wedding dress, designed by Sir Norman Hartnell, was woven at Winterthur Silks Ltd, Dunfermline.

66 The Queen's dressmakers have included Sir Hardy Amies, Sir Norman Hartnell, Karl-Ludwig Couture and Maureen Rose. The Queen's milliners have been Frederick Fox, Philip Somerville and Marie O'Regan.

67 The Queen's wedding ring was made from a nugget of Welsh gold from the Clogau St David's mine, near Dolgellau.

68 The Queen has an extensive collection of jewellery, most of which are Crown Jewels, including the largest pink diamond in the world.

69 The Queen has laid a wreath at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday every year of her reign, except in 1959, 1961, 1963, 1968, 1983 and 1999, when she was either pregnant or overseas on an official visit.

70 The Queen has visited the sets of Coronation Street, EastEnders and Emmerdale.

71 In 1997, the Queen launched Buckingham Palace's first official website.

72 In 1998, the Queen introduced "theme days" to promote and celebrate aspects of British culture. The first theme day was "City Day" focusing on financial institutions.

73 In June 2002, the Queen hosted the first public concerts - the "Party at the Palace" - in the garden of Buckingham Palace to celebrate her Golden Jubilee.

74 The Queen is the first member of the Royal Family to be awarded a gold disc from the recording industry. 100,000 copies of the CD of the "Party at the Palace" were sold within a week of release.

75 The Queen hosted the first women's-only event, "Women of Achievement", at Buckingham Palace in March 2004.

76 In November 2004, the Queen invited the cast of Les Misrables in the West End to perform for the French president, Jacques Chirac, at Windsor Castle.

77 As a young girl, the Queen acted in a number of pantomimes during the Second World War, including playing the part of Prince Florizel in Cinderella in 1941. These took place every year at Windsor Castle.

78 In 2005, the Queen claimed ownership of 88 cygnets on the Thames. They are looked after by the swan marker. The first royal swan keeper was appointed in the 12th century.

79 The Queen still owns the sturgeons, whales and dolphins in the waters around the UK, thanks to a statute from 1324, when King Edward II reigned. Sturgeons, porpoises, whales and dolphins are recognised as "Fishes Royal". When captured or washed ashore within three miles of UK shores, they may be claimed on behalf of the Crown.

80 In 2005, the Queen opened the first "children's trail" in the Buckingham Palace garden for the summer opening.

10 more things you may not know

• 1 In 1964, the postage-stamp designer David Gentleman suggested to Tony Benn, then the postmaster-general, that a new set of stamps be issued without the Queen's head on them. Benn was open to the idea but, after these were mocked up for viewing, word came from the Queen that the status quo was to be observed. She did, however, like Gentleman's idea of substituting her full-face portrait with a profile in silhouette.

• 2 The Queen takes breakfast in the first-floor dining room of Buckingham Palace. Tupperware boxes of cornflakes and porridge are left on the table with a pot of Earl Grey tea. There are silver spoons for the marmalade.

• 3 The Queen carries a comb, a handkerchief, a small gold compact and a tube of lipstick in her handbag.

• 4 Most people think that the Queen never carries money, but she does on Sundays - a folded note, of unknown denomination, which she places in the collection plate at church.

• 5 As a child she was known as "Lilibet" by her close family.

• 6 Touching the Queen is strongly discouraged. Paul Keating, the Australian prime minister, below, broke this rule when he was photographed with his arm around the Queen in 1992 and was afterwards dubbed the "Lizard of Oz" by the British media.

• 7 The Queen, as Princess Elizabeth, spoke on Children's Hour in October 1940. Many British children had been evacuated to the countryside, and Princess Elizabeth wished them luck in their new homes.

• 8 The Queen does not accept honorary degrees from any university.

• 9 As part of the royal prerogative, the Queen does not require a driving licence.

• 10 Orkney is the only part of the UK in which the Queen cannot claim ownership of swans.