It was after a gap of 64 years that Great Britain was to host the Olympics again. And it wasn't just any year, it was the 30th Olympics! Of course something special was in order. Thus, Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II was approached to inaugurate the ceremony on July 27, 2012 and she was game.
Called the London 2012 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXX Olympiad and colloquially as London 2012, this was actually the second Olympics the monarch was opening, the first one being Montreal 1976 and is the only one to open two Olympics. Very quickly, the opening ceremony became the most-watched one on social media platforms.
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The opening ceremony was preceded by a hilarious sketch directed by filmmaker Danny Boyle in which we see none other than James Bond essayed by Daniel Craig escorting Her Royal Highness from Buckingham Palace into a helicopter from which she parachuted right into the stadium, an act performed by a stunt double in this pre-filmed sequence. Talk about arriving in style. Needless to say, it left people across the globe bemused. The Queen is said to have enjoyed filming this and called it "a bit of a laugh". That's the spirit.
