Queen's Birthday Parade - Trooping the Colour, 

London, United Kingdom

A keynote in the calendar of British pageantry, troops of the Household Division (Foot Guards and Household Cavalry) perform the ceremony of Trooping the Colour each year in honour of the Queen's official birthday. Although the Queen was born in April, Trooping the Colour is held in June, the month of her coronation in 1953. Since the early 18th century, each regiment's colours (two flags or banners) were paraded before its own troops so that soldiers would recognise and rally to them in battle. And this tradition continues, nowadays for the benefit of the Queen who then receives a royal salute. At the close of proceedings the Queen returns to Buckingham Palace in a carriage and appears on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to wave to the crowds and watch a fly-past of RAF and occasionally other planes.