What an interesting day is this, the 15th of August:

Quintessentially, of all things leonine, Napoleon's birthday, and suddenly, really, when everyone's just fed up with it being summer, Ferragosto, and time for Mary to ascend into the Heaven of which she is Queen--or, wonderfully, in German, Maria Himmel fart.  It is also (curious reading just revealed to me yesterday) the final, disastrous day of Kublai Khan's second major attempt, in 1281, to invade Japan, when, just as the first attempt (a half dozen years earlier) had been dispersed by a typhoon, so this second, and last, attempt was utterly destroyed by a mighty "Kamikaze" wind--which the Japanese themselves credited to the Heiian  Court for having summoned with the extraordinary efficacy of their nationalist Shinto prayers.  Believe it or not.