Father’s Day this year is set to take place on Sunday, June 19, so there’s still a bit of time to get those presents ordered if you’re not already on the case. Father’s Day always falls on the third Sunday in June, so you can be forgiven for always having to check the exact date it falls upon.
Unlike Mother’s Day, which the UK pioneered, we actually imported the concept of Father’s Day from America – with the first celebration taking place in the US on June 19, 1910, and it has been celebrated on the third Sunday in June ever since.
However, a version of Father’s Day has been celebrated by European Catholics since at least 1508, although some believe it may trace back even further than this. For those in Spain, Italy and Portugal, Father’s Day is celebrated on March 19, which marks the Feast of St Joseph, the patron saint of all fathers.
Read more: Survey shows what dads definitely don't want for Father's Day this year
When is Father’s Day 2022 and when is it celebrated around the world?
Father's Day 2022 will be celebrated on Sunday June 19, which means that it is now just over a week away.
While the third Sunday in June as observed in the UK and US, is the most popular day to celebrate fathers around the world, there are some differences in when people choose to celebrate the dads and grandads depending on where you are based. For example, Germany chooses to celebrate this day on the same day as Ascension Day, when Jesus was said to ascend to heaven in front of his disciples in Bethany, near Jerusalem.
This biblical milestone was said to take place 40 days after Easter Sunday, which works off the lunar calendar, so Father’s Day in Germany moves around quite a lot from year to year. Taiwan might just have the best reason for deciding when to celebrate this momentous day, with the date (the 8th of the 8th) chosen as the Mandarin word for father is ‘ba-ba’, and the word for the number 8 is ‘ba’.
Australia celebrates their Father’s Day on the first Sunday in September, and this is thought to be because they couldn’t wait until the following June to hold it once the idea became popular.
What’s the idea behind Father’s Day?
Nominally to celebrate fathers, but the concept of the modern form of the day came from an American woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, who wanted a day to celebrate her own father as he had raised herself and her five brothers on his own. Her mother had died in childbirth, and she thought it unfair that there was already a Mother’s Day, but no official day existed in the US to honour the nation’s many fathers.
She started a campaign which would eventually culminate in President Richard Nixon officially declaring the third Sunday in June a national holiday in 1972 to mark Father’s Day.
