Every May, people visit Ottawa during the annual tulip festival to admire the blooms from the bulbs donated each fall by the Netherlands. The gift is an annual thank you to Canada for providing a haven in Ottawa for the Dutch royal family exiled when the Nazis invaded and occupied their neutral country during World War II. Queen Juliana’s third child, Princess Margriet Francisca was born in Ottawa in 1943. The Canadian army helped to liberate the Netherlands in 1944 and air-dropped food to its starving, grateful citizens. The tulip is now the official flower of Ottawa, and the two countries have a friendship that has endured.