Some of history's most significant inventions and events occurred during Queen Elizabeth II's lifetime.

Plus a colorized photo, and the Queen's love for Corgis

Queen Elizabeth II passed away last week, and much has been said about her on social media in these last few days. Surely, the system to which she belonged, as well as all of its ramifications, actions and consequences must be questioned and debated. I'm not a big fan of monarchies myself. But Elizabeth's importance as an historical figure - and her reign of 70 years, the longest of any British monarch and the longest recorded of any female head of state in history - can not be overlooked. That is not to say that this story should not be questioned, examined, challenged, discussed. That's why historians exist, after all.

(And although it is not my purpose to discuss this topic here, I do feel that I need to point you to this article by the NY Times, and this one by the PBS).

Anyway, I have a new colorized photo for you. Here's young Elizabeth is with two corgi dogs at her home at 145 Piccadilly, London, on July 1936. The Queen won her first corgi in 1933, and gave it the name Dookie. Over the course of her lifetime, she went on to own more than 30 of them! (and as a dog lover myself, I completely understand why) .

At the time of her passing, Queen Elizabeth is reported to have had four dogs.

(Original by Lisa Sheridan/Studio Lisa/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

“The corgis went where the Queen went - from palace to palace. This included on helicopters, trains, and in limousines. At Christmas at Sandringham they each had their own stocking, filled by the Queen herself. Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms, but the corgis slept inside the Queen's private apartment. As royal author Penny Junor wrote in her book All The Queen's Corgis: "There is a special corgi room where they have raised wicker baskets lined with cushions to keep draughts away." Walking them every day was a part of her routine before mobility issues affected her final months. And in bygone years, she liked nothing more than piling the pack into an elderly Vauxhall estate, donning a headscarf, and setting off for a drive.”

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With the Queen's passing, I was reminded of this fascinating interview with Mrs. Florence Pannel, a lovely lady born in 1868, in which she speaks about life for women in Victorian times. It's almost suffocating to think of how many things Mrs. Pannel, as well as Queen Elizabeth, were able to see happening and changing during the years they were on this planet.

In fact, some of history's most mind-blowing and significant inventions and events occurred during Elizabeth's lifetime.

I've created a timeline with some of them:

• 1927. The invention of the first electronic TV.

• 1928. In the UK, women got the vote on the same terms as men: Women over 30 were given the right to vote in 1918, but universal suffrage wasn't granted until 1928 when the law was changed to allow anyone 21 and older to vote.

  • The bread-slicing machine was designed and manufactured by Otto Frederick Rohwedder

  • Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin

• 1929. The Stock Market Crash.

  • Over 800,000 refrigerators were sold in the U.S.

• 1930. The Salt March.

  • The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Karl Landsteiner for his discovery of human blood groups.

• 1931. The Empire State Building opened.

  • George Beauchamp invented the electric guitar.

• 1932. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to successfully fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

  • The spray can for whipped cream was invented by Charles Goetz.

• 1933. Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany.

  • FM radio was patented by Edwin H. Armstrong.

• 1934. Nazi Germany passed the “Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases” (Gesetz zur Verhütung erbkranken Nachwuchses), mandating the forced sterilization of certain individuals with physical and mental disabilities.

  • The first modern trampoline was invented.

  • Charles Richter developed his Richter Scale to measure the strength of earthquakes.

• 1935. The world’s first pair of men’s briefs were sold in Chicago.

  • The first canned beer was sold in Richmond, Virginia.

• 1936. King George V, Elizabeth's grandfather, died of lung disease.

  • King Edward VIII abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson.

• 1937. The German dirigible "Hindenburg" exploded upon landing in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

  • The jet engine was invented.

• 1938. The Kristallnacht: violent anti-Jewish demonstrations broke out across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Over the next 48 hours, violent mobs, spurred by antisemitic exhortations from Nazi officials, destroyed hundreds of synagogues, burning or desecrating Jewish religious artifacts along the way.

  • U.S. chemical company, du Pont, produces the first nylon-products: toothbrush bristles.

• 1939. The first air-conditioned automobile was rolled out in Chicago.

• 1940. As Princess Elizabeth, The Queen made her first public speech.

  • CBS demonstrated the first color television.

  • The Buckingham Palace was bombed.

• 1941. The Mount Rushmore sculpture was completed.

• 1942. The first electronic digital computer was built in Iowa.

• 1943. Albert Hofmann discovered the hallucinogenic properties of LSD.

• 1944. Allied forces landed in Normandy (D-Day).

• 1945. The atomic bomb was invented.

• 1946. Bikinis went on sale in Paris.

• 1947. AT&T introduced cell phone service between New York and Boston. The phones were known as “push-to-talk” telephones.

  • India declared independence from Britain.

• 1948. The first Polaroid camera went on sale at the Boston Jordan Marsh department store, for $89.75. It made more than $5 million in sales in the first year.

  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created.

• 1949. Apartheid became official government policy in South Africa.

• 1952. The World's first commercial jet service began.

• 1955. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

• 1958. George de Mestral trademarked his 1948 invention, Velcro.

• 1960. The birth control pill was approved for use in US.

• 1961. Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.

• 1965. Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama.

• 1969. America’s first automatic teller machine (ATM) made its public debut.

• 1970. Paul McCartney announced the breakup of the Beatles.

  • 1970s: A number of women started to organize specifically to fight on the issues that affected them as women.

• 1971. Ray Tomlinson sent the first ever email.

• 1973. Roe v. Wade was issued in the US.

• 1974. A cashier at the Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, scanned the world's first Universal Product Code: a 10-pack of Juicy Fruit gum.

• 1979. Margaret Thatcher became the first female British prime minister.

• 1981. The first scientific report on AIDS was published.

• 1982. Royal Philips Electronics manufactured the world's first compact disc (CD).

• 1993. CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain.

• 2007. Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone.

Can you imagine?!

As for the Queen and her corgis, I leave you with this video made for the London Olympics…