Father's Day - Did you know...?

Father's Day is always the third Sunday in June. This year it is June 16, but did you know...?

William Jackson Smart

1. Father's Day was almost June 5th. That was the birthday of the father of Sonora Smart Dodd who initiated the first statewide Father's Day commemoration in Washington State, 1910.

2. Despite the efforts of Ms. Dodd and merchants, who would have loved to have had another gift-giving holiday added to the calendar, Father's Day didn't become a national holiday until 1972, 58 years after Mother's Day.

3. There are approximately 70,100,000 fathers in the United States.

4. There were an estimated 176,000 stay-at-home dads in 2011.

5. Roses are the official flower for Father's Day. A red rose is worn in the lapel if your father is living, a white rose if he is deceased.

6. Dr. Benjamin Spock became the father of modern parenting with his 1946 book "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care". He had two sons, Mike and John.

7. The male Namaqua sand grouse of Africa's Kalahari Desert flies up to 50 miles a day to soak himself in water and bring it back for his chicks to drink from his feathers.

8. A father sea catfish keeps the eggs of his young in his mouth until they hatch, not eating for several weeks.

9. There are 23,019 hardware stores and home centers in the United States.

10. Ties. There is a long history of neckwear worn by soldiers (Roman). The modern necktie traces its history from the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) when Croatian mercenaries, fighting for the French, aroused the interest of Parisians. The boy-king Louis XIV began wearing a lace cravat around 1646 ('cravat' from the French pronunciation of Croat) setting European fashion.

Ties are thought to be vectors of disease in hospitals. In 2007 British hospitals published rules banning neckties. So some doctors have turned to bow ties.