- Sonora Dodd (1882-1978) from Spokane, Washington, first suggested a “Father’s Day” in 1909 after listening to a Mother’s Day sermon. She hoped to establish a day to similarly honor her father, William Smart, who was a widowed Civil War veteran with 6 children and a farm. President Nixon signed the holiday into law in 1972.
- According to multiple surveys, in his lifetime, a man spends almost six months shaving but nearly a year staring at women.
- The top 10 best TV and movie dads (according to Salon) include
1) Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird
2) The Little Tramp, The Kid
3) Charles Ingalls, Little House on the Prairie
4) Nathan Lee Morgan, Sounder
5) The Father, The Road
6) Stan, Killer of Sheep
7) The Father, Children of Heaven
8) Furious Styles, Boyz N the Hood
9) Shukichi, Late Spring
10) Andy Taylor, The Andy Griffith Show. - In the Gen-X survey, Andy Griffith is in the #1 spot.
- Twenty-eight percent of dads said they always buy top brands without concern for the price.
- Halsey Taylor invented the drinking fountain in 1912 as a tribute to his father, who succumbed to typhoid fever after drinking from a contaminated public water supply in 1896.
- If “The Brady Bunch” creator/producer Sherwood Schwartz had gotten his way, Gene Hackman would have played Mike Brady.
- In Ancient Persia, men debated ideas once sober and once drunk, because the idea needed to sound good in both states in order to be considered a good idea.