In Spain and Portugal, El Dia del Padre is celebrated on the 19th of March. The religious background is that the date is the name day of Joseph, or San Jose, the father of Christ.
Many Latin American countries follow the American tradition of celebrating Father's Day on the 3rd Sunday of June. That date originates with Mrs.Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, who, listening to a Mother's Day sermon on the radio in 1908, thought that fathers deserved the same honor. On the 19th of June 1910, she established the tradition, but it took a long time for the celebration to catch on. President Calvin Coolidge backed a bill in 1924 and Father's Day became an official holiday in the United States. The date was adopted by such Latin American countries as Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Paraguay, among many others.
