Happy Father's Day

Father's Day is celebrated worldwide as a special day to honour and appreciate fathers and father figures. The day gives people an opportunity to express their gratitude and love for the unwavering love, support, and guidance given to them.

Father’s Day falls today on June 16th this year and is traditionally observed on the third Sunday of June in numerous countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and India.

The theme for Father’s Day 2024 centers around 'Honoring Fatherhood: Strength, Love, and Sacrifice.' This theme underscores the essential role fathers play in nurturing their children, offering strength and affection, and selflessly making sacrifices for their families’ welfare. It prompts everyone to acknowledge and pay tribute to the diverse and impactful contributions fathers make in shaping the lives of their children.

However, the campaign to celebrate the Father's Day did not meet with the same enthusiasm as Mother's Day–perhaps because, as one florist explained, 'fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.'

On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation's first event explicitly in honor of fathers, a Sunday sermon in memory of the 362 men who had died in the previous December's explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company mines in Monongah, but it was a one-time commemoration and not an annual holiday.

The next year, a Spokane, Washington, woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother's Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful: Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father's Day on June 19, 1910.

Slowly, the holiday spread. In 1916, President Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, D.C. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father's Day.

Today, the day honoring fathers is celebrated in the United States including numerous countries on the third Sunday of June: Father's Day 2021 occurs on June 20.

In other countries–especially in Europe and Latin America–fathers are honored on St. Joseph's Day, a traditional Catholic holiday that falls on March 19.