Father's Day Turns 111: 11 Interesting Facts About This Occasion

Father’s Day was first celebrated on June 19th, 1910 in America by a woman who wanted to honour her veteran father for having raised six children. She was essentially trying to create a ‘Mother’s Day for fathers.

Germany celebrates Father’s Day quite differently compared to other parts of the world. While Father’s Day is celebrated as a day of grand gestures for the father, Männertag celebrates all men in the family and requires them to get sloshed by drinking wagons of beer.

In a world full of occasions, Father’s Day sells the fourth-highest number of greeting cards every year: a staggering 75 million.

Grammar geeks have been trying to point out the fact that Father’s Day is supposed to celebrate all fathers worldwide and therefore, must be titled ‘Fathers’ Day’ instead. But the American government, while establishing the official holiday, still named it ‘Father’s Day.'

Evidence suggests that the first Father’s Day card was made more than four thousand years ago using clay by a Babylonian child. It read “wishing Father good health and long life.”

Different countries celebrate Father’s Day on different days. This American-made holiday is celebrated on the third Sunday of June in countries like Canada, UK and India. Christian countries like Portugal, Italy and Spain like to celebrate it on March 19th ( St. Joseph’s Day).

The official flower of Father’s Day is the Rose, the same as Mother’s Day. Children like to wear a red rose on their lapel on this day if their dad is alive and a white rose if he has passed away.

Although Father’s Day gifts have diversified in recent years, a necktie was the ultimate Father’s Day gift all throughout the 20th century.

Taiwan celebrates Father’s Day on 8th August for colloquial purposes. ‘Ba’ in Taiwanese Mandarin is eight and ‘ba-ba’ is father, making it symbolic to celebrate Father’s Day on the eighth day of the eighth month.

The Father to parent the highest number of kids is Feodor Vassilyev with 69 children of his own. His wife gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets.

The English dad does not have a documented origin story. It is believed that the word was derived from baby talk in the sixteenth century, and especially the word ‘pa’, which was generally the first-uttered word by babies.