Palace publishes Jubilee facts on Queen

The Queen has made 48 Christmas broadcasts

The Queen has been given a seven-year-old elephant, a bull and two tortoises during her reign, according to 50 facts published by Buckingham Palace as part of preparations for her Golden Jubilee.

Royal number-crunchers have calculated that since coming to the throne in 1952, she has given regular Tuesday evening audiences to 10 Prime Ministers and given Royal Assent to 3,135 Acts of Parliament.

The Queen received around three million items of correspondence, conferred 380,000 honours and awards, and sent 37,000 Christmas cards in the past 50 years.

The Queen has:

Received 3m correspondents

Sent 37,000 Christmas cards

Sent 100,000 telegrams to centenarian

Visited Canada 19 times

Made 48 Christmas broadcasts

Launched 17 ships

She also conducted 251 official visits overseas - to 128 different countries ranging from the Cocos Islands with a population of 655, to the People's Republic of China with a population of 1.25 billion.

Of these, Canada proved the most popular with Her Majesty. She has visited the country 19 times.

Australia was her second favourite - with 13 visits.

The Queen has sent 100,000 telegrams to centenarians and 280,000 to couples celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary in the UK and the Commonwealth.

Tiddlywinks

During her reign, more than a million guests have attended garden parties at Buckingham Palace or the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh.

And she has given 88 state banquets.

Her Majesty has also launched 17 ships, attended 31 Royal Variety Performances, made 48 Christmas broadcasts and posed for more than 120 portraits since 1952.

The Queen has owned more than 30 corgis

The Palace also released 50 facts about the Duke of Edinburgh.

They reveal that he appointed the Goons as his royal champions after Cambridge students challenged him to a tiddlywinks match and is worshipped as a god on the island of Tanna, in Vanuatu in the south-west Pacific.

But the Palace neglected to say whether these two facts were related.

And finally, the corgis - the Queen has owned more than 30 since 1944 when she was given her first, Susan, as an 18th birthday present.

She later introduced a new breed of dog known as the "dorgi" when one of her four-legged friends mated with a dachshund belonging to Princess Margaret.