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Mugs, hugs and ties: The history of Father's Day

Although the first Father's Day was in Washington in 1910, the day wasn't made official until 1972.
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Father walking together with his little boy outdoors at sunset

UNITED STATES, — Today is the day, as a nation, we celebrate dads. A day to get dad a mug he doesn't really need, a tie he probably won't wear, maybe a shirt and a power tool. Or some other kind of dad-ish gift that is pressed into our collective notion of 'dad-gift.'

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Father's Day started far before gifting your own father with a ceramic sculpture coupled with a singing fish. It began as a religious holiday and is still celebrated in that way around the world. In Europe it has been around since the Middle Ages, as St. Joseph's Day, the husband of Mary. 

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In the United States, the first Father's Day was in Washington in 1910 and its origins are in Mother's Day, the first being in 1908 and made a national holiday in 1914. 

According to History.com, when Father's Day was introduced it wasn't met with the same enthusiasm as Mother's Day.

"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 website stated.

However, the next year a Spokane woman named Sonora Smart Dodd started campaigning for a type of Father's Day. She was able to have the day, June 19, 1910, celebrated in the state of Washington. 

Credit: Jerry Numbers Collection/Historylink.org

In 1916, President Wilson showed support for the day and in 1924 President Coolidge advocated for a national Father's Day. 

Then, in 1972, President Nixon made it a Federal Holiday. Officially making June 16 the 'Day for the Dads.'

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