Friday proved to be a landmark moment in communications history as Queen Elizabeth of England tweeted for the first time as she dedicated a new gallery in London's Science Museum.

The historic 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 "R" at the end of her name stands for Regina, which is Latin for queen.

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Of course, as she is the Queen of England, she does not tweet like most people - you won't see her hunched over a cell phone or Sidekick with her thumbs flying. She does not have a personal Twitter account, but uses one that is for the entire British monarchy - @BritishMonarchy.

Although Buckingham Palace is mum on the subject, it's doubtful that the Queen typed the message herself as she is known to dictate letters, email and other correspondence. 

But noticeably absent from the Queen's tweet was the presence of the ubiquitous Twitter hashtag. Perhaps #Royals had already been used by Lourdes fans or Kansas City baseball enthusiasts.

Or, perhaps the Queen of England's omission is the first sign of the hashtag's death knell, similar to how John F. Kennedy supposedly ruined the hat industry when he set a precedent by not wearing one during his presidential inaugural speech.

This could be exactly what Twitter wants, as earlier this year the company alluded to phasing out the use of hashtags in tweets.

Vivian Schiller, head of news at Twitter, told an audience at the Newspaper Association of America's mediaXchange conference in March.  Schiller said hashtags were "arcane," and that "We are working on moving the scaffolding of twitter into the background."

That it has taken an 88-year-old great grandmother so long to get on the Twitter bandwagon isn't much of a surprise. But it is rather behind the curve for Queen Elizabeth who has typically been an early adopter of new technology.

She gave the first live televised Christmas broadcast in 1957, and became the first monarch to use email - way back in 1976 - some 20 years before the rest of the world caught on.

TagsQueen Elizabeth Tweets for First Time, Queen Elizabeth, Tweet, Hashtag, London Science Museum, Lourdes, Kansas City