Today is the 100th anniversary of America's official celebration of Father's Day.
However, the tradition is much older than that with ties apparently going back as much as 4,000 years.
With this in mind, to honor all the dads out there, what follows is a history of Father's Day courtesy our friends at The Holiday Spot:
About 4,000 years ago a young boy named Elmusu wished his Babylonian father good health and a long life by carving a Father's Day message on a card made out of clay. No one knows what happened to Elmesu or his father, but the tradition of having a special day honoring fathers has continued through the years in countries across the world.
The Countries, where the Catholic Church were of significant influence on the culture of the society, Father's Day is celebrated on St. Joseph's Day (March 19). However, a more secular celebration which is not associated with any religion is followed in recent times to highlight the increased diversity among people from all over the globe coexisting together in one place.
Father's Day is celebrated popularly on 3rd Sunday in June in many parts of the world. The idea for creating a day for children to honor their fathers began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909. Having been raised by her father, Henry Jackson Smart, after her mother died, Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.
In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. President Nixon, in 1972, established a permanent national observance of Father's Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. So Father's Day was born as a token of love and gratitude that a daughter cherishes for her beloved father. Roses are the Father's Day flowers: red to be worn for a living father and white if the father has died.
Here's more from Father's Day Birthplace:
Sonora Smart Dodd, often referred to as the "Mother of Father's Day," was 16 years old when her mother died in 1898, leaving her father William Jackson Smart to raise Sonora and her five younger brothers on a remote farm in Eastern Washington.
In 1909 when Sonora heard a Mother's Day sermon at Central United Methodist church in Spokane, she was inspired to propose that Father's receive equal recognition.
The following year with the assistance of Reverend Dr. Conrad Bluhm, her pastor at Old Centenary Presbyterian Church (now Knox Presbyterian Church), Sonora took the idea to the Spokane YMCA. The Spokane YMCA, along with the Ministerial Alliance, endorsed Dodd's idea and helped it spread by celebrating the first Father's Day in 1910. Sonora suggested her father's birthday, June 5th, be established as the day to honor all Father's. However, the pastors wanted more time to prepare, so June 19, 1910 was designated as the first Father's Day and sermons honoring Father's were presented throughout the city.
It was years, however, before Father's Day gained national prominence. In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge recognized Father's Day and urged the states to do likewise. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation calling for the third Sunday in June to be recognized as Father's Day and requested that flags to be flown that day on all government buildings. President Richard M. Nixon signed a proclamation in 1972,permanently observing Father's Day on the third Sunday in June.
Sonora's pivotal role in the creation of a national Father's Day celebration was recognized in 1943 at a luncheon in her honor in New York City at the Billion Dollar Bond Drive, at a celebration by the National Council for the Promotion of Father's Day at the 1940 New York World's Fair and at the 1974 World's Fair
Expo in Spokane. A plaque dedicated in 1948 honoring Sonora Dodd's efforts rests on a granite boulder outside the Central Spokane YMCA commemorating the YMCA's role in the first celebration of Father's Day.
Today Father's Day is celebrated from Antigua to Zimbabwe in over 50 countries around the world.
Happy Father's Day!
