Britain's Queen Elizabeth sends her first tweet

Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth made her first foray into the world of social media on Friday when she sent out her inaugural message 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 88-year-old monarch tweeted at the opening of a new gallery at London's Science Museum. The message, sent at 10.35 GMT (6.35 a.m. EDT), had already been re-tweeted more than 4,000 times less than 45 minutes later. The queen's official Twitter account @BritishMonarchy, which is run by royal aides, has issued almost 19,000 messages since its inception in 2009 and has some 725,000 followers. (Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Angus MacSwan)