TODAY IN HISTORY: Elizabeth’s engagement announced

In 1793, Upper Canada, now Ontario, prohibited the importation of slaves and ruled that slaves’ children should be freed at age 25. But the act didn't free any existing slaves in the colony. Slavery had been accepted by the natives and by the first French and English settlers in Canada, finally being outlawed by the British Parliament in 1833.

In 1947, Princess Elizabeth’s engagement to Philip Mountbatten was announced to the world. They were married Nov. 20 in London's Westminster Abbey. Elizabeth became Queen when her father, King George VI, died on Feb. 6, 1952.

In 1942, Otto Frank’s family went into hiding from the occupying Nazis in a backroom area of his Amsterdam food-products business. The family, including young diarist Anne Frank, was discovered and arrested on Aug. 4, 1944 and sent to concentration camps. Only Otto Frank survived.

In 1952, the first diesel locomotives in the Rocky Mountains went into operation, replacing steam power on the CPR between Calgary and Revelstoke.

In 1960, seven-year-old Rodger Woodward became the first person to survive an accidental plunge over Niagara Falls. Roger, his 17-year-old sister Deanne and 40-year-old family friend James Honeycutt were boating on the Niagara River when their motor failed and the current began carrying their boat towards the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. Roger suffered only a slight concussion when he was swept over the Falls wearing only a life jacket and bathing suit. He was picked up by a Maid of the Mist tourist boat and spent three days in hospital. Deanne was rescued at the very edge of the Falls, but Honeycutt drowned. In 1972, Paul McCartney began his first tour since The Beatles final concert in 1966. He and his new band, Wings, opened a European tour in Chateauvillon, France in support of their single “Give Ireland Back to the Irish.”

In 1988, Bryan Adams broke all previous attendance records for concerts in Portugal when he headlined a show before more than 30,000 people in Lisbon. He was joined on stage by Bonnie Tyler.

In 1989, the four original Monkees — Mickey Dolenz, Davey Jones, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork — performed their first concert together in 20 years at a fan convention in Los Angeles. Nesmith had previously refused to take part in reunions.

In 1995, French navy commandos seized the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior, thwarting any attempt to land protesters on a South Pacific atoll where France planned to resume nuclear tests.

In 2007, a 13-year-old Medicine Hat girl was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her parents and eight-year-old brother — the youngest convicted multiple killer in Canada. (She was 12 at the time of the murders.)

In 2020, controversy over the WE charity spread to Finance Minister Bill Morneau, whose daughters have ties to the organization. Morneau’s office would not say if he recused himself from the vote that awarded WE a $900-million, sole-sourced contract to pay students and fresh graduates for summer volunteer work.