WHAT HAPPENED TODAY IN HISTORY?

SORRY, BUT THIS IS CONFUSING.  I FORGOT TO CLICK THE BUTTON TO SEND MY POSTING OF YESTERDAY.  THIS IS IT BELOW.  THE POSTING OF TODAY CAN BE FOUND BY CLICKING ON THAT TITLE BELOW:

THE BLUE EVOLUTION

Two countries could well have their first female national leader in office next year, the USA and Japan.  Of the G7 countries, only the U.S. and Japan have not had a female head of government.  In Japan:

• 
  67-year old Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will step down from a series of minor scandals, and his Liberal Democratic Party will today (it is already September 27 in Japan) select the country's next Prime Minister.
• Nine lawmakers are competing for the LDP nomination for the next general election, which will not occur until October of 2025.

• The nine candidates running in the LDP leadership election (left to right): Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, former Economic Security Minister Takayuki Kobayashi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, former Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato, Digital Minister Taro Kono, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, and LDP Secretary General Toshimitsu Motegi, at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo, Sept. 13.
• 
  The LDP will need to restore public trust, and one of the two female candidates of the nine could well take on that role.  They are 63-year old Sanae Takaichi (left), likened to the UK's Margaret Thatcher, and current 71-year old Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa (right), who when she was younger was a rising star.
• The problem with Japan, and especially the LDP Party, is that they continue to trot out females as tokens to satisfy public needs.  The party is not really serious about having a woman representing the country, and these two candidates are kind of elderly.
• 
  Among the more likely senior prime minister candidates will be 67-year old Shigeru Ishiba, who is running for the fifth time, and maverick-turned-inside, Taro Kono, who ran against and lost to Kishida in 2021.  However, keep an eye on 43-year old Shinjiro Koizumi, who would bring in the youth vote.  Thus, he, Takaichi or Kamikawa could yet sneak in, depending on what the rather conventional LDP Party fears.  The current youngest PM was Hirobumi in 1885 at the age of 44 and Shinzo Abe at 52.  John F. Kennedy became the U.S. president when he was 43.  My prediction is 43-year Koizumi.
• Thus, of Japan and the USA, the more likely female to lead the nation will be Kamala Harris.

This is Thursday, September 26.

• Today is 13 days from October 9, when we leave on a trip that will:
• First take us to Seattle by plane.
• Where we board the Norwegian Encore on a 35-day cruise through the Panama Canal to Southampton, UK.
• Then fly to Amsterdam to embark on a two-week Viking Christmas river cruise to Budapest.
• A 59-day odyssey, returning to Honolulu on December 7.
• 40 days until presidential election day, November 5.
• 90 days till Christmas.

2024 Daily Holidays that fall on September 26.

• International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons 
• Compliance Officer Day
• European Day of Languages 
• Human Resource Professional Day 
• 
  Johnny Appleseed Day 
• Lumberjack Day 
• Mesothelioma Awareness Day 
• National Better Breakfast Day
• National Dumpling Day 
• 
  National Pancake Day 
• Record Store Day - August 29, September 26, and October 24
  
• Remember Me Thursday -September 26, 2024 (Fourth Thursday in September)

• 
  Shamu the Whale Day 
• Situational Awareness Day 
• World Contraception Day 
• World Maritime Day - September 26, 2024 (Last Thursday in September)
• XTERRA World Championships - September 26, 2024

What has occurred on September in history?

• 1580  Francis Drake circumnavigated Planet Earth.  He made it back alive, unlike Magellan. Was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I.

• 
  1933  Machine Gun Kelly when arrested coins FBI agents as G-Men.
• 1960  First televised debate, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

• 
  1973  Concorde made first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.
• 1983  Australia II won the America's Cup in Newport, Rhode Island, the first time since competition  began in 1851.  

• 
  This is the oldest international competition in sports.   
• I was in Perth, Australia when this happened, where the winner, the Royal Perth Yacht Club, had a huge celebration in adjacent Fremantle, involving my active participation.  This was 41 years ago.

• 
  Since then, the Cup has moved hands among the USA, Australia and New Zealand.  
• New Zealand, sponsored by Emirates, now holds the Cup, and will be challenged by the winner of the Louis Vuitton Cup in Barcelona from October 11 of this year.  The NYYC American Magic was last week eliminated by Italy's Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli.

• 
  1996  Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants became the second player to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases.  
• Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers reached 50-50 last week.
• This week, Shohei Ohtani was awaiting his turn in the ninth inning with the Dodgers trailing the San Diego Padres 4-2, with the bases loaded and no outs, when Miguel Rojas hit a sharp grounder to third, leading to a triple play, sending the Padres into the baseball playoffs.

In many ways, nothing truly monumental has ever happened on September 26.  But there was one decision that, if not made, could have led to a nuclear third world war.

• In 1983, Soviet Air Force officer Stanislav Petrov identified a report of an incoming nuclear missile as a computer error and not an American First Strike, single-handedly preventing nuclear war.  He might well be Humanity's greatest hero for what he did under those circumstances.
• What was the worst natural disaster?

• 
  Perhaps Category 5 Super Typhoon Vera , with winds of 190 MPH, on September 26, 1959, killing around 5,000 and destroying 834,000 homes, leaving nearly 1.6 million homeless.

• In 2023 dollars, $6.3 billion in damages.
• Said to be the strongest typhoon to ever hit Japan in recorded history.  Watch this report.
• Mind you, in 1970 Cyclone Bhola only reached 115 MPH, but killed anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000, while Hurricane Katrina over New Orleans in 2005 caused $200 billion (value in 2024) in damages, so as natural disasters go, Vera was not much.

However, I bring up this subject because Hurricane Helene will today make landfall over Florida, and should be a Category 3, or higher.  We certainly don't want to eclipse Super Typhoon Vera.

Now at 120 MPH, only a couple of hours to landfall, the eye will pass just west of Tallahassee, move towards Atlanta (that small black dot by that larger green dot), and make an unusual turn to the west, instead of east, where storms of this type usually head towards the Eastern Seaboard.  

It is remarkable how those computer models today do an amazing job of tracking these tropical storms.  A week ago, though, the European version had Helena only getting up to Category 1, while the American model said Category 2.  Thus, these projections, while accurate on the eye track, were slightly off on the strength, for Helena is at Category 3, and might well get up to 130 MPH at landfall, which would be a Category 4.

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