Or so the headline at latimes.com says. We can’t embed the video for you, thanks to the AP, so click here to experience all the canonical goodness. So to speak. The UK is celebrating 60 years since Her Majesty ascended to the throne, and doing it with a bang. That’s supposedly a 62-gun salute. But it looks like only three to us. And why 62, anyway? Is that one for each year plus two for each Elizabeth? Colonial minds want to know.

13 COMMENTS

  1. I’m going to lay it all out for you.

    2012 – 60 = 1962

    1 + 9 + 6 + 2 = 18

    1 + 8 = 9, as in September

    2 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 6 + 0 = 11

    Therefore, 9/11 was a British conspiracy. You didn’t think they’d forgotten about us being theirs, did you?

    [/tongue-in-cheek]

  2. From Wikipedia,
    “The number of rounds fired in a salute depends on the place and occasion. The basic salute is 21 rounds. In Hyde Park and Green Park an extra 20 rounds are added because they are Royal Parks. At the Tower of London 62 rounds are fired on royal anniversaries (the basic 21, plus a further 20 because the Tower is a Royal Palace and Fortress, plus another 21 ‘for the City of London’) and 41 on other occasions. The Tower of London probably holds the record for the most rounds fired in a single salute — 124 are fired whenever the Duke of Edinburgh’s birthday (62 rounds) coincides with the Saturday designated as the Queen’s official birthday (also 62 rounds).”

  3. The number of cannon used in a battery depends upon the intervals between each round fired. This includes, for example, a three-gun battery firing two of its guns with five-second intervals between rounds and one gun remaining at the ready in case of a misfire; such a battery would be used at an Armed Forces Full Honors Funeral, or for State Arrival Ceremony of a foreign dignitary at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. A four-gun battery has its first three guns firing rounds at three-second intervals, with the fourth gun (again) at the ready in case of misfire.

    Really, the term 21-gun salute or xx-gun salute is a misnomer. It is actually a 21-round salute. The battery keeps firing rounds in sequence until the required number of round for the salute.

  4. When the Queen has a baby, they fire a 21 gun salute.
    When a Nun has a baby, they fire a dirty old Cannon.
    (You have to be a Catholic to understand that one …)

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