10 Fascinating Father’s Day Facts
Happy Father’s Day to all of the AMAZING dads out there! We thought it would be fun to have a list of interesting facts on the history of Father’s Day and all things DAD!
- On July 5, 1908, after 362 men had died in an explosion at the Fairmont Coal Company mines, a church in West Virginia held the nation’s first event explicitly dedicated to the honoring of fathers.
- A year later, Sonora Smart Dodd attempted to create a “Mother’s Day” for fathers as she was one of six children raised by a widower. On July 19, 1910, the state of Washington celebrated Father’s Day statewide.
- Any grammarian will notice that “Father’s Day” is grammatically incorrect since it does not include all fathers plurally. Sonora Smart Dodd lobbied for Congress to call it “Fathers’ Day,” but Congress used “Father’s Day” when declaring it a national holiday.
- While Calvin Coolidge was the first president to support the holiday and Woodrow Wilson spoke at a Father’s Day celebration, Lyndon B. Johnson was the first president to declare the third Sunday in June to be Father’s Day, although it was not made an official national holiday until Richard Nixon declared it to be so in 1972.
- One of the earliest Father’s Day cards dates back to 2000 B.C. when a young Babylonian named Elmesu “carved a card out of clay to ‘wish his father good health and long life.’”
- The official flower of Father’s Day is the rose! Red roses are worn on your lapel if your father is still living and white roses are worn if he has passed.
- The name “Dad” is thought to have originated sometime in the 15th century from baby talk like “dada” or “tata.”
- Americans are anticipated to spend over $15 billion on gifts for Father’s Day. One of the ultimate Father’s Day gifts is a necktie, which dates back to 221 B.C. In 1974, Chinese farmers unearthed a whole pottery army (“Terracotta Army”) of China’s first emperor that were wearing neckties.
- Father’s Day is the fourth largest card-sending holiday with over 72 million cards being sent. “Twenty percent of Father’s Day cards are sent from moms to their husbands.”
- In the Old Testament of the Bible, God is referred to as the Father of certain individuals and of the nation Israel. In the New Testament, Jesus refers to God as His Father and those who believe in Jesus are called children of God.
Most of these facts were pulled from The Daily Meal’s article, “15 Things You Didn’t Know about Father’s Day.”
