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The Queen was in Sandringham earlier this year when she marked her accession to the throne in 1952.
She was born in 1926, not in a royal residence, but in a London townhouse on Bruton Street, where she first lived with her father and mother, who became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
Birthday wishes have been sent by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and gun salutes will be fired.
IMAGE SOURCE,UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
The house on Bruton Street where the Queen was born was demolished in the 1930s
The Queen has had mobility problems in recent months and has had to miss a number of events, including church services over Easter.
Her only public appearance this year, outside of her own residences or on video, was at the Thanksgiving Service for Prince Philip at Westminster Abbey.
The Queen's 96th birthday marks another unprecedented age for a British monarch, in a year in which she has become the first monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee of 70 years on the throne.
The next longest-lived monarchs were Queen Victoria and George III, who lived to the age of 81, and were the only other monarchs to have lived into their 80s.
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, the Queen is one of about 124,000 people in the 95 to 99 age group in the UK, almost three quarters of these being women.
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