History- Sunday

Hi! This is a new segment, it's going to be all about ladies and girls who were a part of history. Hopefully I will be able to find one that corresponds with the current date. (Or one near it) Some of them you may know and some of them you may not. Some of them are older and some your age. They all had a cause or purpose and acted upon it. Hopefully they will inspire you. Here is the first.

Samantha Smith was only 5 years old when she wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth, but that wasn't what made her an important part of history, that happened five years later. In December 1982 at the age of 10 Samantha, who lived in Manchester, Maine, wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov. He was the leader of the Soviet Union. Samantha had been watching the news and reading the paper with her mom and was seeing all the coverage about the Soviet Union and its threat of declaring nuclear war on the U.S. She was concerned about why the relationship between the U.S and the Soviet Union. Here is her letter:

Dear Mr. Andropov,

My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren't please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country. God made the world for us to live together in peace and not to fight.
Sincerely,
Samantha Smith


Her letter was published in the Soviet newspaper Pravda. Samantha was glad her letter had been published, but disappointed that she hadn't gotten a reply. She then sent a letter to the Soviet Union's ambassador to the United States asking why she hadn't gotten a reply. On APRIL 26th 1983 she got a response from Mr. Andropov. Click here to read it: http://www.samanthasmith.info/andropov's_response.htm

Samantha ended up being invited to spend two weeks in the Soviet Union with her family. She goes to a summer camp Artek on the Crimean Peninsula. She made a good friend, Natasha Kashirina. Samantha's story goes on and is quite fascinating. She ended up being the first child goodwill ambassador to Russia or anywhere for that matter. Here story however ends tragically. Click here to read how:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Smith#Death

I hope you liked this new segment!

Libby G.

P.S. Both of those website links contain other good info about Samantha and her life.