Nation-wide gun salutes mark Queen’s 86th birthday

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Traditional 41-gun salutes have rung out to mark the Queen’s 86th birthday at Hyde Park and the Tower of London, while the monarch herself celebrated the event with family.

It is regarded as one of six royal events marked annually with the traditional gun salutes. The portable 19th century gun at Fort Blockhouse has been firing salutes since it was acquired by the Navy in 1957. Royal Navy ships at Portsmouth Naval Base were “dressed overall” through the display of a variety of flags across the length of the ship, to mark the royal birthday. Gun salutes also rang out over two Scottish cities to honour the Queen’s birthday.

A spokesman from Buckingham Palace has told: “The queen is spending the day privately”, adding that the queen was at Windsor Castle, the official residence west of London where she mostly spends her weekends.

The nation-wide celebrations went well. However, at Hyde Park in central London, a brief interruption has happened to the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery’s salute when a panicked horse broke free in the presence of a crowd comprising nearly thousand spectators. An army spokeswoman has reported that no one had been injured in the incident.

Gun salutes also took place at several military bases across the country to mark the occasion. The queen’s official birthday is celebrated every year in June, in the hope of warmer weather for the annual trooping the Colour military ceremony. Current year’s Trooping the Colour on June 16 will be part of a packed summer schedule for the queen, who is marking her diamond jubilee with a tour of Britain and is set to open the London Olympic Games on July 27.

Queen’s 60 years on the throne is planned to be celebrated by the Britain with a four-day weekend in June including a pageant of boats on the River Thames and a concert outside Buckingham Palace featuring Paul McCartney and Elton John.

The queen appeared in good spirits on Friday as she has a conversation with world golf number one, Rory McIlroy along with his girlfriend, the top Danish tennis player, Caroline Wozniacki, at the horse races in Newbury, west of London.

The monarch is a famous horse racing lover, like her daughter, Princess Anne who rode the queen’s horse in the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, and her grand-daughter, Zara Phillips, a former world eventing champion.

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