Like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day has a modern origin. The idea came to Mrs. John Dodd as she sat listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Her father, William Smart, had raised his children alone on his Washington farm after his wife died giving birth to their sixth child. Mrs. Dodd proposed to the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA that they celebrate a “father’s day” on June 5, her father’s birthday. The idea received strong support, but the good ministers of Spokane asked that the day be changed to give them extra time to prepare sermons on the unexplored subject of fathers. The first Father’s Day was observed on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington, and soon other towns had their own celebrations. In spite of widespread support, Father’s Day did not become a permanent national holiday until 1972, when President Richard Nixon signed a law declaring that it be celebrated annually on the third Sunday in June.
Daily Calendar for Sunday, June 18, 2023
Born
- E.W. Scripps (newspaper publisher) –
- James Montgomery Flagg (illustrator of Uncle Sam I Want You for the U.S. Army” poster”) –
- Sylvia Porter (economist) –
- Paul McCartney (musician) –
- Roger Ebert (film critic) –
- Isabella Rossellini (actress) –
- Carol Kane (actress) –
- Kurt Browning (figure skater) –
- Willa Holland (actress) –
Died
- Ethel Barrymore (actress) –
- John Cheever (author) –
- I.F. Stone (journalist) –
- Jack Buck (broadcaster) –
- Doris Dowling (actress) –
- Vincent Sherman (director) –
- Tasha Tudor (children’s author & illustrator) –
- Clarence Clemons (musician) –
Events
- The United States declared war on Great Britain–
- Napoleon’s troops were defeated at Waterloo (present-day Belgium)–
- First fly-casting tournament in the United States, Utica, New York–
- Checker Cab put its first taxi on the streets–
- National Postal strike in Canada–
- Sally Ride became the first American woman in space–
- A 9-lb. 6-oz. kokanee salmon caught in Okanagan Lake in British Columbia–
- Edward Fincke first U.S. astronaut in space during birth of his child–
- 63-lb. 8-oz. flathead catfish caught, James River, South Dakota–
- 103-year-old Julia Hawkins won the 100-meter dash at the National Senior Games–
Weather
- Phoenix, Arizona, had a temperature of 115 degrees F–
- Tucson, Arizona, had a temperature of 113 degrees F–
- Atlanta had 3.47 inches of rain within an hour–
- A thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina produced a single flash of lightning that lasted 17.102 seconds, setting a world record for the longest duration of a single lightning bolt. –