• On Thursday, Queen Elizabeth shared her first Instagram post while visiting the London Science Museum.
• Although the monarchy is known for following tradition, the Queen has embraced technology throughout her reign.
• These are times that Queen Elizabeth has used technology and changed the way the palace has worked with the internet and TV.

By virtue of living in 2019, the British royal family is pretty different than it's been in the past — and not just because Prince Harry married an American woman.

When you think of the British monarchy, it's easy to think of a kingdom steeped in tradition, and while that's true on some level, Queen Elizabeth is actually much more progressive than you might think. And now that she's on Instagram, it's a good time to look back at all of the other ways she has welcomed technology through the years.

She certainly has chosen to maintain many traditions that have been enforced long before her reign, but Queen Elizabeth also has never shied away from progress, either. Here are the ways that the Queen has embraced technology, whether it involved social media or not.

She had the first televised coronation in the royal family's history

Queen Elizabeth's 1953 coronation at Westminster Abbey was the first coronation to ever be televised, and according to the royal family's website, it was watched by 27 million people in the United Kingdom.

Queen Elizabeth sent her first email in 1976

Although Elizabeth was late to Instagram, she was early to email. According to Wired, when ARPANET — which later became the internet — made it to a telecommunications research center called Royal Signals and Radar Establishment in England, the Queen became one of the first to send an email in 1976. Peter Kirstein, who helped her send the message, told the site that the username he set up for her was HME2, for "Her Majesty, Elizabeth II."

She recorded her annual Christmas message in 3D

Every year, Queen Elizabeth records a Christmas message to share with the UK about the year that has passed, but one year, she decided to mix things up a bit. In 2012, she recorded the message in 3D, and according to what a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace told the BBC, she thought it was "absolutely lovely."

She sent her first tweet in 2014

The queen isn't just Instagram savvy — she's been on Twitter, too. In 2014, she sent her very first tweet, also during a visit to the London Science Museum. "It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting.  Elizabeth R," she wrote on October 24, 2014.

The Queen visited Google headquarters

Back in 2008, the queen visited Google, and the royal family even shared a video of the visit to their official YouTube page. In fact, while they were there, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were even shown a viral video of a laughing baby (per The Telegraph), and couldn't help laughing at it themselves.

Queen Elizabeth made her first Instagram post in March

On March 7, the queen posted to the royal family's official Instagram account for the first time during a visit to the London Science Museum, sharing a photo of a letter that hangs in the museum that was written to her great great grandfather, Prince Albert, from Charles Babbage, the world's first computer pioneer.

"Today, I had the pleasure of learning about children's computer coding initiatives and it seems fitting to me that I publish this Instagram post, at the Science Museum which has long championed technology, innovation and inspired the next generation of inventors," she wrote.

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