Father's Day at 100: How It Began, Why Dads Get Fewer Gifts
Find out why Father's Day is no Hallmark holiday, why Dad doesn't mind getting fewer gifts, and more.
As Father's Day hits its centennial today, sons and daughters around the world are expected to open their wallets wider—slightly—in celebration. Because of the slowly recovering global economy, people are expected to spend about 4 percent more than in 2009 on cards, ties, tools, clothes, and other Father's Day gifts.
But the first Father's Day, a hundred years ago, was decidedly humbler, and refreshingly noncommercial.
(Father's Day Pictures: "Best" Animal Dads.)
Father's Day was only officially made a national holiday in the U.S. in 1972, when President Richard Nixon declared it to be the third Sunday of June. But the holiday actually traces its origins to early 20th-century Washington State.
Inspired by a
