Queen Elizabeth posted her first Instagram message ever, and it’s so sneakily feminist
In case you didn’t know: Queen Elizabeth II is officially posting on Instagram. And she used her first message to the public to share an often-overlooked piece of feminist history. On Thursday, March 7th, the monarch took to the Royal Family’s official Instagram feed to share a letter she discovered to her great-great grandfather. “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,” she began, explaining that the letter was from Charles Babbage, who is credited as the world’s first computer pioneer.
"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."
Lovelace has been called the first computer programmer for her work and ideas. And while many of her contributions were not fully recognized until the 1950s, the early programming language Ada was named for her as a tribute to her groundbreaking work.
Queen Elizabeth closed out her message by explaining that since she “had the pleasure” of learning about children’s computer coding initiatives that day, the letter seemed “fitting” to share. She signed the post “Elizabeth R.”
Thank you for this feminist history lesson, Your Majesty!
