As always, Queen Elizabeth II is working to keep the 1,000-year-old British monarchy relevant in the 21st century — this time by giving Instagram a try.
But given that 92-year-old Elizabeth is globally famous, her first Instagram post, appropriately signed “Elizabeth R.,” already is going viral. That’s the case even if her caption doesn’t contain clever hashtags and her photo is not some glamorous shot of her granddaughters-in-law, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, or of her cute great-grandchildren, George, Charlotte and Louis.
No, Elizabeth, as devoted as ever to her royal duties, posted to the @theroyalfamily account an image of letter of 176-year-old letter that she came across at a cultural event she attended at the Science Museum in London.
“Today, as I visit the Science Museum I was interested to discover a letter from the Royal Archives, written in 1843 to my great-great-grandfather Prince Albert,” Elizabeth wrote.
Elizabeth then offered her readers a brief history lesson by identifying the author as Charles Babbage, who is credited as the world’s first computer pioneer by inventing the Difference Engine, an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions.
Elizabeth said her great-great-grandfather Albert had the opportunity to see the prototype of the Difference Engine in July 1843.
Elizabeth further explained: “In the letter, Babbage told Queen Victoria and Prince Albert about his invention the ‘Analytical Engine,’ upon which the first computer programmes were created by Ada Lovelace, a daughter of Lord Byron.”