We just got done celebrating our beloved moms and maternal figures on Mother’s Day, so you might be wondering when Father’s Day is.
When do we celebrate the dads in our lives on Father’s Day? Here’s the 2026 date and how the holiday came to be.
When is Father’s Day 2026?
Father’s Day will fall on Sunday, June 21, 2026.
Father’s Day doesn’t fall on the same date every year. It always falls on the third Sunday of June, so the calendar date changes yearly.
It can be as early as June 15 or as late as June 21 in any given year.
Father’s Day events in Ohio
Want to plan for a Father’s Day event to celebrate dad instead of buy socks, a tie, or another box of golf balls? Ohio has a few options in the coming weeks:
My Ohio Fun also has event ideas that aren’t Father’s Day specific, but you and your dad or father figure might enjoy them.
Did Father’s Day or Mother’s Day come first?
Mother’s Day came before Father’s Day. Mother’s Day came to be when Anna Jarvis created the idea in 1908; it became an official U.S. holiday in 1914, according to History.
What is the story behind Father’s Day?
Father’s Day can also be traced back to 1908. The first known service celebrating the idea of Father’s Day happened in July of that year after hundreds of men died in a mining accident in Fairmont, West Virginia. The service in their honor was the first known as Father’s Day, according to Farmer’s Almanac.
A year later, Sonora Smart Dodd, a 27-year-old woman from Spokane, Washington, was inspired by Mother’s Day and came up with the idea of creating a day in June to celebrate fathers. She was inspired because her father, William Jackson Smart, a farmer and Civil War veteran, raised her and her siblings after her mother’s death.
Dodd proposed her father’s birthday, June 5, as Father’s Day, but ministers selected the third Sunday in June to allow more time after Mother’s Day to prepare their sermons. But it took decades to become a national holiday.
When was Father’s Day officially established?
The first bill to establish Father’s Day as a holiday was presented to Congress in 1913, but it didn’t pass. Later, President Calvin Coolidge signed a resolution in favor of establishing it in 1921.
Finally, in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order to celebrate the holiday on the third Sunday of June. It eventually became a national holiday under President Richard Nixon, in 1972.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Father’s Day 2026 date and Ohio events to help celebrate dad
Reporting by Mariyam Muhammad, USA TODAY NETWORK / Akron Beacon Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
