On this day in ...... 1983 (25 years ago today), Samantha Smith, a 10 year old schoolgirl from Maine, received a letter in which President Yuri Andropov invited her to visit the Soviet Union. His letter came in response to hers of a few months earlier, in which Samantha (left) wrote, in part:
I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to have a war or not? If you aren't please tell me how you are going to not have a war.
She and her parents made the trip that summer, and she became known as a child emissary for
peace. She and her father died in a plane crash in 1985. (photo credit)... 1974, a military coup took place in Portugal. What came to be known as the Carnation Revolution brought to an end a dictatorship that had lasted for 50 years, longer than any other in Europe. The people of Portugal (flag at right) celebrate this date as Freedom Day.
