Week of June 19 – Father’s Day trivia

First local Father’s Day was celebrated on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington.

Father’s Day was first celebrated on the third Sunday of June.

Sonora Louise Smart Dodd, of Spokane, Washington, started the tradition of Father’s Day in the honor of her dad, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran.

Father’s Day is celebrated at different times around the world. In Thailand it falls on Dec. 5; in Australia it’s observed on the first Sunday of September.  In Germany father’s day, Vatertag, is always celebrated on Ascension Day (the Thursday forty days after Easter), which is a federal holiday. Regionally, it is also called men’s day, M’nnertag, or gentlemen’s day, Herrentag.

Father’s Day was first supported by President Calvin Coolidge in 1924. In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson declared the third Sunday of June as the official holiday. It was President Woodrow Wilson who first said, however, in 1916 that Father’s Day should be given the status of a national holiday.

Father’s Day is the fifth most popular card-sending holiday, with an estimated $100 million in card sales. Husbands, grandfathers, uncles, sons and sons-in-law are honored as well as father.

While not everyone in America is a fan of Father’s Day, 72 percent of Americans plan to celebrate or acknowledge Father’s Day.

Neck ties, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, are the number one gift for Father’s Day.

Almost half as much is spent on Father’s Day gifts as on Mother’s Day. Does this mean that we moms are more expensive? Or is it because the most popular Father’s Day gift is a simple necktie?