Problem: Junius Richard Jayewardene (Sinhalese: juniys ricdd jyvrdhn,Tamil: juunnniys ricctt jyvrtnnnaa; 17 September 1906 - 1 November 1996), commonly abbreviated in Sri Lanka as J. R., was the leader of Sri Lanka from 1977 to 1989, serving as Prime Minister from 1977 to 1978 and as the second President of Sri Lanka from 1978 till 1989. He was a leader of the nationalist movement in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) who served in a variety of cabinet positions in the decades following independence.

On the economic front, Jayewardene's legacy was decisive. For thirty years after independence, Sri Lanka had struggled in vain with slow growth and high unemployment. Since Jayewardene's reforms, the island has maintained healthy growth despite the civil war.  On the ethnic question, Jayewardene's legacy is bitterly divisive. When he took office, ethnic tensions were present but the country as a whole was at peace. By the end of his tenure, Sri Lanka was facing not one but two civil wars, both featuring unprecedented levels of violence and brutality.  Though Jayewardene indeed did not take measures to stop the attack on Tamils, he was not opposed to them personally, only politically. One of his most esteemed friends was a supreme court judge of Tamil ethnicity, a member of an elite family and raised in Colombo, but who was strongly linked to his Jaffna Tamil heritage. This is but one close Tamil friend of the president's, and it is quite clear that he was not a racist but rather a man who knew how to exploit racism to win the majority.  Highly respected in Japan for his call for peace and reconciliation with post-war Japan at the Peace Conference in San Francisco in 1951, a statue of Jayewardene was erected at the Kamakura Temple in the Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan in his honor. In 1988, the J.R Jayewardene Centre was established by the J.R Jayewardene Centre Act No. 77 of 1988 by Parliament at the childhood home of J. R. Jayewardene Dharmapala Mawatha, Colombo. It serves as archive for J.R Jayewardene's personal library and papers as well as papers, records from the Presidential Secretariat and gifts he received in his tenure as President.

What were his reforms?

Answer with quotes: On the economic front, Jayewardene's legacy was decisive.


Problem: Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 - January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his 40-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of subjects, including landscapes, still lifes, nudes, portraits, genre scenes and even whimsical parodies. It is said that he developed a "quintessentially American, and specially Californian, approach to modern photography" because of his focus on the people and places of the American West.

Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative. This was essential for the platinum printing that he preferred early in his career, since at that time the platinum papers required ultra-violet light to activate. Weston did not have an artificial ultra-violet light source, so he had to place the contact print directly in sunlight in order to expose it. This limited him to printing only on sunny days.  When he wanted a print that was larger than the original negative size, he used an enlarger to create a larger inter-positive, then contact printed it to a new negative. The new larger negative was then used to make a print of that size. This process was very labor-intensive; he once wrote in his Daybooks "I am utterly exhausted tonight after a whole day in the darkroom, making eight contact negatives from the enlarged positives."  In 1924 Weston wrote this about his darkroom process, "I have returned, after several years use of Metol-Hydroquinine open-tank" developer to a three-solution Pyro developer, and I develop one at a time in a tray instead of a dozen in a tank." Each sheet of film was viewed under either a green or an orange safelight in his darkroom, allowing him to control the individual development of a negative. He continued to use this technique for the rest of his life.  Weston was known to extensively use dodging and burning to achieve the look he wanted in his prints.

What are some of the things that he made in his darkroom?

Answer with quotes: Weston always made contact prints, meaning that the print was exactly the same size as the negative.


Problem: Augusta Jane Evans, or Augusta Evans Wilson (May 8, 1835 - May 9, 1909), was an American author of Southern literature. She was the first woman to earn US$100,000 through her writing. Wilson was a native of Columbus, Georgia, and her first book, Inez, a Tale of the Alamo, was written when she was still young.

She was born Augusta Jane Evans on May 8, 1835, in Columbus, Georgia, the eldest child of the family. The area of her birth was then known as Wynnton (now MidTown). Her mother was Sarah S. Howard and her father was Matthew R. Evans. She was a descendant on her mother's side from the Howards, one of the most cultured families of Georgia. As a young girl in 19th-century America, she received little in the way of a formal education. However, she became a voracious reader at an early age.  Her father suffered bankruptcy and lost the family's Sherwood Hall property in the 1840s. He moved his family of ten from Georgia for Alabama, and scarcely ten when they moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1845. When the Mexican-American War had ended, and everything was in a disorganized condition, consequently there were no schools of any prominence. Had her mother not been cultivated and literary, Evans could never have obtained the education which fitted her for the work she later accomplished. During the Mexican war, San Antonio was the rendezvous for the United States troops sent to assist General Zachary Taylor, and the brilliant uniforms of the soldiery, the martial music, and the exciting events that accompany war, combined with the picturesque, enchanting scenery around San Antonio, furnished an excellent theme for Evans' first novel. In 1850, at the age of fifteen, she wrote Inez: A Tale of the Alamo, a sentimental, moralistic, anti-Catholic love story. It told the story of one orphan's spiritual journey from religious skepticism to devout faith. She presented the manuscript to her father as a Christmas gift in 1854. It was published anonymously in 1855.  However, life in a frontier border town like San Antonio proved dangerous, especially with the Mexican-American War. By 1849, Evans' parents moved the family to Mobile, Alabama. She wrote her next novel, Beulah, at age 18; it was published in 1859. Beulah began the theme of female education in her novels. It sold well, selling over 22,000 copies during its first year of publication, a staggering accomplishment. It established her as Alabama's first professional author. Her family used the proceeds from her literary success to purchase Georgia Cottage on Springhill Avenue.

Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

Answer with quotes:
Her father suffered bankruptcy and lost the family's Sherwood Hall property in the 1840s. He moved his family of ten from Georgia