Father's Day.

Next Father's Day is 17th June 2012.

Father’s Day in the UK and US and many other countries is celebrated on the third Sunday in June. But in some countries like Spain, Portugal And Italy where the Catholic Church was of significant influence Father's Day is celebrated on St. Joseph's Day (March 19th) and in the Arab countries It tends to be celebrated on the 21st June (the 1st day of summer) becauseMother's Day in these countries is celebrated in the first day of spring.

Its history in its current form can be traced to Sonora Dodd of Washington State who was listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909 when she had the idea for a equivalent Father’s Day celebration. A year later on her father’s birthday, 19th June 1910, in Spokane Washington, she celebrated the first Father’s Day to honour her father William Smart, a Civil War veteran, who was widowed when his wife died in childbirth with their sixth child.

Hallmark began creating Father’s Day cards in the early 1920s in the United States although information on when the celebration spread from the US to UK is sketchy. Today Father’s Day is the fourth largest card sending occasion. The first known Father’s Day card was carved in clay nearly 4000 years ago by a Babylonian youth named Elmesu.

Today popular gifts given on Father’s Day are ties, socks, chocolates, experience days, DIY tools and of course cards and the infamous best father or greatest Dad mugs.