National Men Make Dinner Day 2024 is on Wednesday, November 6, 2024: Who came up with the idea of Father's Day?

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Father's Day is a celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother's Day in celebrating fatherhood and male parenting. It is also celebrated to honor and commemorate our forefathers. Father's Day is celebrated on a variety of dates worldwide and typically involves gift-giving, special dinners to fathers, and family-oriented activities. The first observance of Father's Day is believed to have been held on June 13, 1910 through the efforts of Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington. After listening to a church sermon at Spokane's Central Methodist Episcopal Church in 1909 about the newly recognized Mother's Day, Dodd felt strongly that fatherhood needed recognition, as well.[1] She wanted a celebration that honored fathers like her own father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran who was left to raise his family alone when his wife died giving birth to their sixth child.[2]

Dodd was the first to solicit the idea of having an official Father's Day observance to honor all fathers. Enlisting help from the Spokane Ministerial Association in 1909, she arranged for the celebration of fatherhood in Spokane. On June 19, 1910, young members of the YMCA went to church wearing roses: a red rose to honor a living father, and a white rose to honor a deceased one.[2] Dodd traveled through the city in a horse-drawn carriage, carrying gifts to shut-in[clarification needed] fathers.[2]

It took many years to make the holiday official. In spite of support from the YWCA, the YMCA, and churches, Father's Day ran the risk of disappearing from the calendar.[3] Where Mother's Day was met with enthusiasm, Father's Day was often met with laughter.[3] The holiday was gathering attention slowly, but for the wrong reasons. It was the target of much satire, parody and derision, including jokes from the local newspaper Spokesman-Review.[3] Many people saw it as the first step in filling the calendar with mindless promotions.[3]

A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913.[4] In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak in a Father's Day celebration and wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized.[2] US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation. Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress.[5] In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents"[5] In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day.[2] Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.[2][5]

In addition to Father's Day, International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries on November 19 for men and boys who are not fathers.

Where and when did the "valentines day" originate?....?

The origins of Valentine's Day, like the origins of love itself, are somewhat obscure — a combination of myth, history, destiny, chance and marketing.

Legend has it that a certain third-century priest named Valentine persisted in performing marriage ceremonies despite a ban by the Roman emperor Claudius II (Claudius was persuaded that single men made better soldiers for his army). Thrown into jail, Valentine formed a relationship with his jailor's daughter (some say he cured her blindness) and he signed his last message to her "From your Valentine," a phrase which still gets a lot of mileage.

St. Valentine was executed on February 14, circa the year 270, and his remains (probably his, but there were two other Christian martyrs called Valentine) are now on display in the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin.

There are also reports of an ancient pagan custom that took place in preparation for the Roman festival of Lupercalia, which started February 15. The names of the town's maidens would be collected and then drawn at random by the local bachelors; in this fashion couples were paired off for the year.

Third, medieval Europeans thought February 14 was the date on which the birds started to mate. (There's no record of when the bees started.) From "Parlement of Foules," a poem by Chaucer:

"for this was on seynt Volantynys day/ Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his mate.

Starting on Valentine's Day 1400, the French royal court held a Cour Amoreuse, in which ministers met after mass in "joyous recreation and talk about love." Love poems were presented before the ladies, who judged them and awarded a golden crown for the best one.

St. Valentine's Day was on the official Church list of feast days from 496, when Pope Gelasius I established it, until 1969, when Pope Paul VI dropped it from the calendar.

The first valentine on record was sent in 1415 by Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. That message is on display in the British Library. In the 1840s a Massachusetts woman called Esther Howland came up with the idea of mass-producing Valentine's Day cards; now, about a billion are sent yearly, mostly by women.

Valentine's Day gifts, however, are another matter — there, American men outspend women two to one. The most popular gifts, according to the National Retail Federation, are (in descending order): candy/chocolate, dinner/a night out, flowers, and jewelry.-

Happy National Coming Out Day!!!!!?

Happy NCOD to you too! Ok, here's mine...

I have always been feminine. My relatives always had their thoughts about me, well I never denied it, but I never admitted it either. Well one day I was shopping with my mom(I was picking out her shoes) and I said to her...mom, guess what...I'm gay! And she said, "oh honey, fabulous, FINALLY, now let me find you a man..." LOL No joke, to this day my mom is STILL picky about who I date..."oh honey he's cute but what about your future, he's poor!...or...."that has got to be the hottest man alive, too bad he has that horrible hair cut". LOL

I love my mom, we're both flaming queens and we both party all the time.

I think I'll invite my mother to dinner! Stir fry....haaay!

LOL...you said FESTIVE!...That's my secret gay word!

Of course I've always been fashionable, wealthy, good looking, and I must admit...I have a certain flair about me that drives some men(even straight ones) wild!

I know...I'm conceited...but I'm honest.