(CNN) — Here is some background information about Father’s Day, celebrated the third Sunday in June.
Facts: June 21, 2015 – Father’s Day
Father’s Day is the fourth-largest card-sending occasion with 80 million cards given every year.
Fifty percent of all Father’s Day cards are purchased for fathers. Almost 20 percent of Father’s Day cards are given to husbands.
The U.S Census Bureau estimates there is 70.1 million fathers in the United States in 2008. And that there is 214,000 stay-at-home dads in 2013 taking care of children while a spouse works outside the home.
ORIGINS
Sonora Louise Smart Dodd of Spokane, Wash., is credited with starting Father’s Day after hearing a sermon on Mother’s Day.
Dodd wanted to honor her father William Jackson Smart, a widower who raised six children on his own.
Timeline: 1910 – Spokane celebrated the first Father’s Day on June 19, the anniversary of William Jackson Smart’s birthday.
1924 – President Calvin Coolidge publicly supported plans for a national Father’s Day.
1966 – President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Father’s Day to be an official national holiday.
1972 – President Richard Nixon signed into law a permanent U.S. Father’s Day to be observed on the third Sunday of June.
