Short answers, pulled from the story.
Samantha Smith was an American peace activist and child actress from Manchester, Maine, born on the 29th of June, 1972. She became famous at age ten after writing a letter to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov in 1982 and receiving a personal reply with an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, earning her the informal title America's Youngest Ambassador.
Samantha asked Andropov whether he intended to start a nuclear war, challenged him on why the Soviet Union wanted to conquer the world, and urged that God made the world to be shared, not fought over. Her letter was published in the Soviet state-run newspaper Pravda.
Andropov compared Samantha to Becky, the friend of Tom Sawyer, calling her courageous and honest. He stated that the Soviet Union had pledged never to use nuclear weapons first against any country, proposed abolishing all nuclear stockpiles on Earth, and personally invited her to visit the Soviet Union that summer.
Samantha visited Moscow and Leningrad and spent time at Artek, the main Soviet pioneer camp in the town of Gurzuf on the Crimean Peninsula. She chose to share a dormitory with nine Soviet girls rather than accept special accommodations, learned Russian songs and dances, met cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, and performed the song "May There Always Be Sunshine!" with a friend named Natasha Kashirina.
Samantha Smith died on the 25th of August, 1985, when Bar Harbor Airlines Flight 1808 crashed while attempting to land at Lewiston-Auburn Regional Airport in Auburn, Maine. The Beechcraft 99 commuter plane struck trees 4,007 feet short of the runway, killing all six passengers and both crew members. Samantha was thirteen years old.
Russian astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh named asteroid 3147 Samantha after her in 1986. Maine law designates the first Monday in June as Samantha Smith Day. A bronze statue of her stands near the Maine State Museum in Augusta. In July 2023, a bronze monument was unveiled at Artek bearing the inscription "May There Always Be Sunshine."