The Duke of Edinburgh had two stag parties before his wedding to the Queen and the couple were showered with rose petals as they headed off on honeymoon.

The information is among 60 facts released by Buckingham Palace to celebrate their diamond anniversary.

Another fact reveals how their wedding cake on 20 November 1947 was 9ft (2.74m) high.

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An Andy Warhol painting of actress Dame Elizabeth Taylor has been sold for $23.7m (£11.4m) at a New York auction.

An anonymous bidder bought the 1963 portrait, called Liz, which had been expected to fetch more than $25m (£11.9m) at Christie’s.

The auction house refused to confirm reports that it was British actor Hugh Grant who sold the portrait after he bought it in 2001 for $15m (£7.2m).

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A couple are preparing to become one of the UK’s oldest newly-weds after a whirlwind romance.

James Mason, who is 93, is marrying the girl of his dreams, Peggy Clark, who is 84, at a mansion in Devon.

James, a former Torbay Mayor, said he was hit by “a bolt from the blue” when he met Mrs Clark and popped the question three days later.

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Quintuplets born to a Russian woman in a British hospital are doing well, according to doctors.

The 29-year-old music teacher gave birth to the five girls in the early hours of Saturday at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, 14 weeks early.

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About 6,000 middle-aged or older women in the UK develop cancer each year because they are obese or overweight, a Cancer Research UK-funded study says.

The study, which looked at 45,000 cases of cancer in 1m women over seven years, says this is about 5% of such cases.

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Tango lovers in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, have commissioned a two-ton monument in homage to the country’s favourite music – the tango.

They say it is the first time any city or country has honoured a style of music in this way.

The 3.5m (11ft 5in) high steel statue was driven down one of the main streets of Buenos Aires, from the workshop to the site where it will be erected.

The obvious question is: How come it has taken until now?

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The face of Egypt’s most famous ancient ruler, King Tutankhamun, has been put on public display for the first time.

Archaeologists took the mummy from its stone sarcophagus and placed it in a climate-controlled case inside his tomb in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings.

The event comes 85 years to the day after the pharaoh’s tomb was discovered by British explorer Howard Carter.

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A Texas man has beaten his own bizarre world record – by sitting in a bathtub with 87 rattlesnakes for 45 minutes.

Jackie Bibby, known as the “Texas Snake Man”, beat his previous best by 12 snakes in the feat.

The venomous snakes were not “defanged”, he said, but none had bit him during the challenge – certified by a Guinness World Records official.

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You’ve all heard them: dieting is easy. Just cut out fats and carbs, eat lots of popcorn and drink lots of fruit juice. Welcome to the Land of Diet Myths.

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The survivor of a shark attack in Hawaii has told of his terror as he struggled back to shore, fearing the fish would come back to finish him off.

Aaron Finley, 32, felt something hit his left leg really hard while he was swimming about 30ft off Wailea beach.

“It was like a hard bump. Not a buzz saw or anything like that,” said the sound engineer from West Hollywood.

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