more than 70 million fathers in the United States
ABOVE VIDEO: William Jackson Smart was a farmer from Arkansas; a sergeant with the Union’s First Arkansas Light Artillery during the American Civil War, and is the reason why we celebrate father’s day. (ILStv.com Video)
HISTORY.com – On July 19, 1910, the governor of the U.S. state of Washington proclaimed the nation’s first “Father’s Day.”
However, it was not until 1972, 58 years after President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day official, that the day became a nationwide holiday in the United States.
There are more than 70 million fathers in the United States.
In 1972, in the middle of a hard-fought presidential re-election campaign, Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday at last.
Today, economists estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on Father’s Day gifts.
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