Today is Father’s Day in the U.S., first celebrated 108 years ago in Spokane, Washington. After hearing a church sermon about the newly recognized Mother’s Day, Sonora Louise Smart, whose father had raised her, felt strongly that fatherhood needed recognizing, too. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson sent a telegraph praising the town’s churches for recognizing the significant role fathers play. 50 years later, President Johnson signed a proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father’s Day. (1910)
MORE Good News on this Date:
- After a noble woman died during childbirth, her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, spent the next 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal (1631)
- Amelia Earhart embarked on the first trans-Atlantic flight by a woman (1928)
- Hawaii’s King Kamehameha III issued the Edict of Toleration giving Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands (1839)
- Andy Gibb became the first solo artist in music history to have his first three releases reach No.1, when ‘Shadow Dancing’ hit the top of the US charts (1978)
- A ‘Joint Understanding’ agreement on arms reduction was signed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the groundwork for the START II Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty which banned…
