Without President Nixon, Would We All Celebrate Father's Day?

Today's celebration of dads has been a special day for 106 years, but did not become official until 1972. 

The first Father's Day was celebrated in 1910 in Spokane, Washington, after a local woman named Sonora Smart Dodd pushed to start the tradition after hearing a church sermon about Mother's Day.

Dodd's mother had died so she wanted to honor her father, whose birthday was in June.

From 1916 through 1966 famous figures like Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge and Lyndon B. Johnson celebrated the day. But it did not became a nationally recognized celebration until 1972 when President Richard Nixon formally declared it as an annual federal holiday. 

"To have a father - to be a father - is to come very near the heart of life itself. Our identity in name and nature, our roots in home and family, our very standard of manhood - all this and more is the heritage our fathers share with us," Nixon said. "It is a rich patrimony, one for which adequate thanks can hardly be offered in a lifetime, let alone a single day."