Major

Major is a military rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces. When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicators, the rank is just senior to that of an army captain and right below the rank of lieutenant colonel. It is considered the most junior of the field officer ranks.

Majors are typically assigned as specialized executive or operations officers for battalion-sized units of 300 to 1,200 soldiers. In some militaries, notably France and Ireland, the rank of major is referred to as commandant, while in others it is known as captain-major. It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures, such as the New York State Police, New Jersey State Police and several others. As a police rank, Major roughly corresponds to the UK rank of Superintendent.

When used in hyphenated or combined fashion, the term can also imply seniority at other levels of rank, including general-major or major general, denoting a mid-level general officer, and sergeant major, denoting the most senior NCO of a military unit. The term Major can also be used with a hyphen to denote the leader of a military band such as in pipe-major or drum-major.

Sean Paul

Sean Paul Ryan Francis Henriques (born 9 January 1973), known simply as Sean Paul, is a Jamaican dancehall ragga hip hop recording artist, musician, producer and actor.

Life and career

1973–1996: Early life

Sean Paul was born in Kingston, Jamaica to parents Garth and Frances, both of whom were talented athletes. His mother is a well-known painter. His paternal grandfather had Sephardi Jewish ancestry, from a family that had emigrated from Portugal, and his paternal grandmother was Afro-Caribbean; his mother is of English and Chinese Jamaican descent. Sean Paul was raised as a Catholic, though aware that his grandfather came from an old respected Jamaican Jewish family. Many members of his family are swimmers. His grandfather was on the first Jamaican men's national water polo team. His father also played water polo for the team in the 1960s, and competed in long-distance swimming, while Sean Paul's mother was a backstroke swimmer. Sean Paul played for the national water polo team from the age of 13 to 21, when he gave up the sport in order to launch his musical career. He attended Wolmer's Boys' School and the College of Arts, Science, and Technology, now known as the University of Technology, where he was trained in commerce with an aim of pursuing an occupation in hotel management.

John Major

Sir John Major, KG, CH, PC (born 29 March 1943) is a British Conservative Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary in the Thatcher Government and was the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon from 1979 to 2001.

Within weeks of becoming Prime Minister, Major presided over British participation in the Gulf War in March 1991 and negotiated the Maastricht Treaty in December 1991. He went on to lead the Conservatives to a fourth consecutive election victory, winning the most votes in British electoral history with over 14 million in the 1992 general election, with a reduced majority in the House of Commons. Shortly after this, the Major Government became responsible for the United Kingdom's exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) after Black Wednesday on 16 September 1992. This event led to a loss of confidence in Conservative economic policies and from thereon in he was never able to achieve a lead in the opinion polls again.