Father's Day, Sunday, June 20, 2021

Father's Day, a day to honor fathers, our bonds with them, and their influence in society, was founded by Sonora Smart Dodd, who was born in Arkansas. Its first celebration was held at the Spokane, Washington YMCA on June 19, 1910, to honor Ms. Dodd's father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, who was a winower and raised his six children as a single father in Spokane.

Its origins may been a memorial service held in Monongah, West Virginia in early 1908 for a large group of men, many of them fathers, who were killed in a mining accident in December 1907.

In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order that the holiday be celebrated on the third Sunday in June. Under President Richard Nixon, in 1972, Congress passed an act officially making Father's Day a national holiday.