a day honoring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds and the influence of fathers in society. It is celebrated on the third Sunday of June in 55 of the world’s countries and other days elsewhere.
Father’s Day is a celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother’s Day celebrating fatherhood and male parenting. It is also celebrated to honor and commemorate our forefathers. Father’s Day is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide and typically involves gift-giving, special dinners to fathers, a
speciality cakes and family-oriented activities. The first observance of Father’s Day is believed to have been held on June 13, 1910 through the efforts of Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington. After listening to a church sermon at Spokane’s Central Methodist Episcopal Church in 1909 about the newly recognized Mother’s Day, Dodd felt strongly that fatherhood needed recognition, as well. She wanted a celebration that honored fathers like her own father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who was left to raise his family alone when his wife died giving birth to their sixth child.
