The Queen today sent her first tweet - and yes, she really did tap it out and press the tweet button herself.

The regal technological milestone was passed as the Queen attended the opening of a new gallery at the Science Museum in London.

The royal tweet read: "It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R."

The queen appears to have emulated the habits of her son, Prince Andrew, who signs tweets he has written himself AY for Andrew York.

The Queen's message was sent via the official @BritishMonarchy Twitter account which has 722,000 followers.

The Queen sent her first email at an RAF base in 1976 and she made the first direct-dial trunk call from the UK in 1958.

She has had a mobile telephone since 2001, when she was given one for Christmas by Andrew, almost the technologically forward of the Windors.

Prince Harry said over the summer that he 'hates' twitter for its invasion of his privacy.