Donald Bennett, age 13, of Marion, Ohio, for his question:
WHO STARTED FATHER'S DAY?
Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June each year by many people in the United States and Canada. It is on this day that they express gratitude and appreciation by giving their fathers special greetings or presents.
Mrs. John Bruce Dodd, of Spokane, Wash., who started Father's Day in 1910. Some years later, the custom spread throughout the U.S. In 1936, a national Father's Day Committee was formed.
In addition to being the title for a male parent, "father" is also the title of honor given to men who establish items of importance in human affairs. A man who occupies an unusual place in history is sometimes called a father. The title has no official standing and is given only by custom.
For example, George Washington, the first President of the U.S., is often referred to as "father of his country."
The same title has been given to other men in history. The Romans called Cicero the "father of his country" because he saved the state from the plots of Catiline. Julius Caesar and the Emperor Augustus also received the same title.
Hippocrates, the most famous Greek physician of ancient times, is called the "father of medicine."
"Father of America" is the title that was given to Samuel Adams, one of the most active patriots in the cause of American independence. And "father of the Constitution" is the title that was earned by James Madison.
"Father of angling" was Izaak Walton, the man who wrote about the delights of fishing in "The Compleat Angler" which was published in 1653.
The "father of English pottery" is Josiah Wedgewood, who made the manufacture of pottery in England an art.
And the "father of English printing" is a title that was earned in 1473 by another Englishman, William Caxton.
"Father" is also the title that is given to priests of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.
The title of "father of comedy" goes to Aristophanes, the man most experts agree was the greatest of the Greek writers of comedy.
Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote the famous "Canterbury Tales," is known as the "father of poetry." Alfred the Great, who inspired and partly wrote the first English history to appear in his native language, is known as the "Father of English prose."
The "father of Greek tragedy" is Aeschylus, the first great writer of Greek tragedy. Homer, who tradition says wrote the famous Greek epic poems the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," is called the "father of epic poetry."