Problem: Sir John Major  (born 29 March 1943) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. He served as Foreign Secretary and then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Thatcher Government from 1989 to 1990, and was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon from 1979 until his retirement in 2001. Since the death of Margaret Thatcher in 2013, Major has been the oldest living former Prime Minister. Born in St Helier, Surrey, Major grew up in Brixton.

Major was interested in politics from an early age. Encouraged by fellow Conservative Derek Stone, he started giving speeches on a soap-box in Brixton Market. He stood as a candidate for Lambeth London Borough Council at the age of 21 in 1964, and was elected in the Conservative landslide in 1968. While on the Council he was Chairman of the Housing Committee, being responsible for overseeing the building of several large council housing estates. He lost his seat in 1971.  Major was an active Young Conservative, and according to his biographer Anthony Seldon brought "youthful exuberance" to the Tories in Brixton, but was often in trouble with the professional agent Marion Standing. Also according to Seldon, the formative political influence on Major was Jean Kierans, a divorcee 13 years his elder, who became his political mentor and his lover, too. Seldon writes "She ... made Major smarten his appearance, groomed him politically, and made him more ambitious and worldly." Their relationship lasted from 1963 to sometime after 1968.  Major stood for election to Parliament in St Pancras North in both United Kingdom general elections in 1974, but was unsuccessful each time. In November 1976, Major was selected to be the candidate for the safe Conservative seat of Huntingdonshire. He won the seat in the 1979 general election. Following boundary changes, Major became the MP for the newly formed seat of Huntingdon in 1983, and retained the seat in 1987, 1992 and 1997. He retired from Parliament in 2001.  He was appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1981, becoming an assistant whip in 1983. He was later made Under-Secretary of State for Social Security in 1985, before being promoted to become Minister of State in the same department in 1986, first attracting national media attention over cold weather payments to the elderly in January 1987, when Britain was in the depths of a severe winter.

Did he win the campaign that year?

Answer with quotes: elected in the Conservative landslide in 1968.


Problem: Bill Laswell (born February 12, 1955, Salem, Illinois, and raised in Albion, Michigan) is an American bassist, producer and record label owner. Laswell has been involved in hundreds of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world. Laswell's music draws upon many different genres, most notably funk, various world music, jazz, dub and ambient styles. He has also played or produced music from the noisier, more aggressive end of the rock spectrum, such as hardcore punk and metal.

Within a few years of moving to New York, Laswell founded a recording studio with producer/engineer Martin Bisi (of later indie rock renown) and hooked up with Jean Karakos and his fledgling label Celluloid Records. Under the Material moniker (now also a production unit consisting of Laswell and Beinhorn - Maher being long gone - and by 1984 consisting solely of Laswell) Laswell became the de facto house producer for Celluloid until the sale of the label in the later 1980s. During this time in the early to mid-1980s, Laswell was able to record some of his Material excursions (which ran the gamut from experimental jazz/funk to pop and R&B, featuring everyone from avant-jazz figures Henry Threadgill and Sonny Sharrock to Archie Shepp and pop star Whitney Houston) as well as projects such as Massacre, with Fred Frith and Fred Maher.  His association with Celluloid allowed some of his first forays into this so-called "collision music" - the term was coined for Laswell by the British writer Chris May, then editor of Black Music & Jazz Review and later a Celluloid staff member - and forays into world music. Recordings with the Golden Palominos and production on albums by Shango, Toure Kunda and Fela Kuti all appeared on the label. Celluloid also released a slew of 12" devoted to Hip-Hop, becoming a precursor to the popularity the form enjoyed starting in the mid-1980s. Fab 5 Freddy, Phase II and Afrika Bambaataa all appeared on the label. Criminally forgotten, Laswell also put together the very successful 12" World Destruction which paired PiL's John Lydon with Afrika Bambaataa - years before the Run-D.M.C./Aerosmith collaboration broke down the rock/hip-hop barrier. 1982 also saw Laswell's solo debut, Baselines.  Also recording a Laswell-helmed solo album for Celluloid was Ginger Baker, whom Laswell coaxed out of semi-retirement, giving the drummer's career a new boost. He likewise brought Sonny Sharrock out of semi-retirement and produced some of the guitarist's most acclaimed recordings, starting with the solo LP Guitar.

Did any other artists record under that label, too?

Answer with quotes: now also a production unit consisting of Laswell and Beinhorn - Maher being long gone - and by 1984 consisting solely of Laswell)


Problem: Rosenberg was born on 12 January 1893 in Tallinn in the Russian Empire, the capital of modern Estonia, to a family of Baltic Germans. His father, Waldemar Wilhelm Rosenberg, was a wealthy merchant from Latvia, and his mother, Elfriede (nee Sire), was a teacher of French language in Tallinn. The Hungarian-Jewish journalist Franz Szell, who was apparently residing in Tilsit, Lithuania, spent a year researching in Latvian and Estonian archives before publishing in 1936 an open letter, with copies to Hermann Goring, Joseph Goebbels, German foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath, and others, accusing Rosenberg of having "no drop of German blood" flowing in his veins. Szell wrote that among Rosenberg's ancestors were only "Latvians, Jews, Mongols, and French."

Rosenberg was captured by Allied troops at the end of the war in Flensburg-Murwik. He was tried at Nuremberg and found guilty of all four counts: conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes; and crimes against humanity. The final judgment against him named him one of the principal planners of the invasions of Norway and the Soviet Union. It also held him directly responsible for the systematic plunder of the occupied countries of Europe, as well as the brutal conditions in Eastern Europe. During his trial he wrote his memoirs, which were published posthumously and with analytical commentary by Serge Lang and Ernst von Schenck.  He was sentenced to death and executed with other condemned co-defendants at Nuremberg Prison on the morning of 16 October 1946. His body, like those of the other nine executed men and that of Hermann Goring, was cremated at Ostfriedhof (Munich) and the ashes were scattered in the river Isar.  Throughout the trial, it was agreed that Rosenberg had a decisive role in shaping Nazi philosophy and ideology. Examples include: his book, Myth of the Twentieth Century, which was published in 1930, where he incited hatred against "Liberal Imperialism" and "Bolshevik Marxism"; furthering the influence of the "Lebensraum" idea in Germany during the war; facilitating the persecution of Christian churches and the Jews in particular; and opposition to the Versailles Treaty.  According to Joseph Kingsbury-Smith, who covered the executions for the International News Service, Rosenberg was the only condemned man who, when asked at the gallows if he had any last statement to make, replied with only one word: "No".

Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

Answer with quotes:
Rosenberg was captured by Allied troops at the end of the war in Flensburg-Murwik.