Victorian era

Hello. My name is Victoria, and I was a queen. I was a queen for a very, very long time. So long that people named the time after me. It was called the Victorian Age. I lived in a big palace and wore a sparkly crown on my head. It was very shiny. I loved my dear husband, Prince Albert. We had a big family with lots of children who would run and play in the palace gardens. It was a happy time to be a queen and a mother.

My time as queen was full of wonderful new things. It was so exciting. We saw the very first steam trains. They were big and noisy and went 'choo-choo!' as they puffed across the land. It was like magic. People also learned how to take pictures for the first time. We called them photographs. Before, we only had paintings. Now we could see real faces in a picture. And if you wanted to send a letter, you put a little sticky picture of me on it. That was called a stamp. It was a time full of amazing new ideas.

One day, my wonderful Prince Albert had a brilliant idea. "Let's have a big party," he said. "A party to show everyone all the amazing new inventions from all over the world." So, in the year 1851, we built a giant, shiny house made all of glass. It was called the Crystal Palace. We filled it with wonderful things for our party, the Great Exhibition. It showed that when people share their clever ideas, they can make the world a more beautiful and exciting place for everyone.