James Callaghan

Leonard James Callaghan, later Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, born March 27, 1912, in Portsmouth, and died March 26, 2005, served as Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from April 1976 to May 1979. He is the only person to have held all four Great Offices of State, having previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary before becoming prime minister. His government was overwhelmed by the widespread public sector strikes of the winter of 1978 to 1979, known as the Winter of Discontent, and in March 1979 his government lost a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons by a single vote, the first government to be brought down this way since 1924; he lost the subsequent general election to Margaret Thatcher.