A London exhibition celebrating the history of communications technology; “Information Age: Six Networks that changed our world” got a very modern royal seal of approval from Queen Elizabeth II, who opened the gallery recently by sending her very first Tweet.

It was perhaps fitting that she chose to launch the gallery on Twitter – “It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @sciencemuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R,”

The R reportedly stands for “Regina,” which is the Latin word for queen.The post was immediately followed by another message, which said, “The last tweet was sent personally by The Queen from her official Twitter account @BritishMonarchy #TheQueenTweets.” This was followed by another post which showed a photo of the Queen, dressed in a blue coat and hat and standing behind a podium while she tapped on the screen of an iPad.

The project is a museum gallery dedicated to the history of information and communication technologies.

From the first transatlantic telegraph cable that connected Europe and North America in minutes rather than weeks, to the advanced computing power of the modern smartphone, the gallery looks at how the modern connected world was created through six communication networks: the telegraph; the telephone, radio and television broadcasting; satellite communications; computer networks; and mobile communications.

Royal Tweets

Whilst it was the first time the Queen has sent a Tweet, Royalty and leaders around the world are no strangers to the platform.

Queen Rania of Jordan (@QueenRania) was the first serving Monarch to have her own Twitter account. Her bio reads “A mum and a wife with a really cool day job…” and she Tweets a combination of Arabic and English messages about her life and work.

In England, Prince Andrew the Duke of York (@TheDukeOfYork) became the first member of the immediate Royal Family to join the platform in a personal capacity when he signed up in 2013. He signs his personal Tweets with his initials AY, such as the shot of his office supporting the GB curling team at #Sochi2014.

He was joined on the platform this year by his daughter Princess Beatrice (@YorkieBea) who Tweets about her charity work, as well as occasional pictures of her pet dog which recently gave birth to puppies.

And the Queen made a surprise appearance in a picture on Twitter this summer, appearing in the background of Commonwealth Games athlete Jade Taylor’s Tweet, making that Tweet the most Retweeted of the entire Games.

In fact, Royal photobombing became something of a craze as the Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry got involved in the fun too.

Prince Harry sent his first ever Tweet earlier this year as he launched the @InvictusGames, followed soon after by his first ever Twitter selfie with the Duke of Cambridge at the launch of the Queens Young Leaders (@QueensLeaders) initiative.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge use the Clarence House account (@ClarenceHouse) to keep followers updated on news of their expanding family, including announcing the news of Prince George’s arrival in 2013, and the impending arrival of a new #RoyalBaby in 2014.

And when the King of Spain abdicated, he chose Twitter to share the moment instantly with the Spanish people.

Closer home, President Jonathan Goodluck is very active on social media and he regularly tweets on relevant developments in Nigeria https://mobile.twitter.com/JGoodlucktweets. One of his latest Tweets was applauding Nigeria’s victory over Ebola. He has also sent several tweets on the Chibok girls.

US President Obama is probably the most socially media conscious leader in the world. He has almost 50 million followers on Twitter and has so far sent out over 12,000 Tweets.