This is kind of a hodgepodge of questions, some of them open-ended, but here's a stab at a few of your specific queries:
So was java inspired from python, or rather what did java do to make OOP popular that python couldn't?
Simply put, Java followed the C++ model. C++ itself was popular because it was (mostly) backwards compatible with C, the premier systems language of the 70s and 80s, and basically just added OOP capabilities to C. Moving to C++ was an easy transition for C programmers, and moving to Java was a relatively easy transition for C++ programmers. Java followed the style of C++, but did away with some of its oddities (for example, it made primitives the same size on all architectures), and of course ran in a VM which enhanced portability.
Why didn't Python popularize OOP? Because Python was relatively obscure (especially outside of the Unix world) until later in the 1990s, after Java had become popular (which was due at least partly to web applets and the explosion of the World Wide Web in the mid-90s).
What was the inspiration for Ruby in OOP?
Ruby's OOP constructs are modeled mostly after those of Smalltalk (whereas C++, and by extension Java, are modeled mostly after Simula-67). That is to say, it focuses on message passing, rather than the binding of methods to class instances.
Any derivatives of Perl that are popular today?
Not that I know of (unless Ruby counts as a "derivative", since it's inspired greatly by Perl).
BASIC and COBOL died a natural death; which languages do you see diminishing in the future?
Well, COBOL's still around for legacy code. :) But yes, it'd be silly to start a new project from scratch with COBOL.
It's hard to say what other languages may perish. Java? It's not the trendsetter it used to be, and JVM-based languages like Scala are increasing in popularity, but so many people cut their teeth on Java, and there's so much code written in Java, that I can't see it going away anytime soon. C, C++? Nah, they still have their use (I wish C++ would die, but I digress). Perl? Development of Perl, especially Perl 6, is lagging, but like Java, there's so much code written in Perl that it's not going to go away. PHP? Maybe; PHP has mostly been superseded by much better languages like Python, Ruby, or even ASP.NET -- but again, there is so much web software written in PHP that I certainly don't see it going away any time soon.
There are a lot of smaller languages out there that could die, but I don't think any of the big ones are going away in the near future.
Partly this is due to the ever-increasing importance of computers in our lives. COBOL effectively died because it was replaced by better technologies before it became so omnipresent that it couldn't die -- and, as I pointed out, maintenance of COBOL old code still happens in many sectors (for example, a lot of banks still use old software written in COBOL). But with the widespread deployment of computers now, it's hard for a language to die because chances are, there's still some software written in that language, and someone who knows -- and likes -- using it.
I suppose a lot of languages we use today might not be in usage a century or two down the road, though, so it depends on what time scale you're talking about. :)