It would be interesting to know how Father’s Day came into practice and celebrated worldwide with an equal respect as that of mother’sday and other significant holidays. The custom of honoring dad’s on a special day was traced in the ruins of Babylon over 4,000 years old. A young boy called Elmusu carved a Father’s Day message on a card made out of clay wishing his Babylonian father good health and a long life. No one knows what happened to Elmesu or his father, but the tradition of having a special day celebrating and honoring fathers had remained through the years in several countries across the world. Father’s Day was celebrated on St. Joseph’s Day (March 19) as the Catholic Church had a significant influence on the culture of the society those days.

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No matter who choose to celebrate Father’s Day, Father’s Day is today a day the perfect occasion for children to honor and to express feelings of gratitude and thankfulness to their fathers and to every dad in the world. Modern version of Father’s Day celebration originated and began in Spokane, Washington. A woman by the name of Sonora Smart Dodd created the tradition, and thereafter the tradition spread in countries around the world. She was the oldest of six children who were raised by their father, Civil War veteran Henry Jackson Smart, was widowed after their mother died during childbirth. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state.

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Listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909 at the Central Methodist Episcopal Church. Sonora thought of an idea inspired from the lecture is to honor fathers and to establish a father’s Day. Sonora wanted her father to know how special he was to her because she realized the selflessness her father had shown in raising and bringing up his children, single-handedly, as a single parent after their mother died. Mr. Smart was in the eyes of his daughter Sonora, 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 a couple of weeks after Sonora’s father’s birthday. After Sonora became an adult she realized the selflessness and the greatness her father had shown in raising his children and wanted to let him know how deeply she was touched. She was the first to solicit the idea of having an official Father’s Day observance. With support from the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA, the first Father’s Day was celebrated in Spokane on June 19, 1910, that was a way Sonora paid a tribute to her great dad.

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Unlike Mother’s Day, which was readily accepted, Father’s Day history was bumpy, Father’s Day was received with mockery,hilarity and making fun of it as some people resisting the idea.Although the holiday continued to be celebrated, it would be another 62 years before it was officially recognized. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge recommended the idea of a national Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day and was set aside for a national holiday. President Lyndon Johnson signed a similar proclamation in 1966, but President Richard Nixon, proclamation Father’s Day in 1972, so it become a permanent national holiday held on the third Sunday of June. Sonora Dodd, the driving force behind the holiday, died March 22, 1978.Father’s Day is now celebrated popularly on 3rd Sunday in June in every part of the world. In the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and many other countries. 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 to honor a living father and white rose to honor a deceased one.

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