Uemura Shōen was the pseudonym of an important artist in Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa period Japanese painting. Her real name was Uemura Tsune. Shōen was known primarily for her bijin-ga paintings of beautiful women in the nihonga style, although she produced numerous works on historical themes and traditional subjects. Shōen is considered a major innovator in the bijin-ga genre despite the fact she often still used it to depict the traditional beauty standards of women. Bijin-ga gained criticism during the Taisho era while Shōen worked due to its lack of evolution to reflect the more modern statuses of women in Japan. During bijin-ga's conception in the Tokugawa, or Edo, period, women were regarded as lower class citizens and the genre often reflected this implication onto its female subjects. Within the Taisho era, women had made several advancements into the Japanese workforce, and artistry specifically was becoming more popular outside of pass times for the elite, which opened way for Shōen's success.
Dr. Christopher J. Scolese is director of the National Reconnaissance Office. He was appointed the 19th Director of the National Reconnaissance Office on August 1, 2019. Scolese was sworn into office on August 5, 2019.
The DNRO provides direction, guidance, and supervision over all matters pertaining to the NRO and executes other authorities specifically delegated by the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence.
Scolese began his government career as a United States Naval Officer in 1978, supporting a variety of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Programs for the U.S. Navy and the Department of Energy. He served on active duty until 1983, and then in the Navy Reserve until 1991, retiring as a lieutenant.
Vostok 3 was a spaceflight of the Soviet space program intended to determine the ability of the human body to function in conditions of weightlessness and test the endurance of the Vostok 3KA spacecraft over longer flights. Cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev orbited the Earth 64 times over nearly four days in space, August 11–15, 1962, a feat which would not be matched by NASA until the Gemini program.
Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 were launched a day apart on trajectories that brought the spacecraft within approximately 6.5 km of one another. The cosmonauts aboard the two capsules also communicated with each other via radio, the first ship-to-ship communications in space. These missions marked the first time that more than one crewed spacecraft was in orbit at the same time, giving Soviet mission controllers the opportunity to learn to manage this scenario.