document_title: Nuclear warfare

question_text: when was the last time a nuclear bomb was used

question_tokens: when was the last time a nuclear bomb was used

root

text: Nuclear warfare

text: Types of nuclear warfare[edit]

text: The possibility of using nuclear weapons in war is usually divided into two subgroups, each with different effects and potentially fought with different types of nuclear armaments.

tag: p

text: The first, a limited nuclear war [14] (sometimes attack or exchange), refers to a small-scale use of nuclear weapons by two (or more) belligerents. A "limited nuclear war" could include targeting military facilities—either as an attempt to pre-emptively cripple the enemy's ability to attack as a defensive measure, or as a prelude to an invasion by conventional forces, as an offensive measure. This term could apply to any small-scale use of nuclear weapons that may involve military or civilian targets (or both).[dubious – discuss] [according to whom?]

text: The second, a full-scale nuclear war, could consist of large numbers of nuclear weapons used in an attack aimed at an entire country, including military, economic, and civilian targets. Such an attack would almost certainly destroy the entire economic, social, and military infrastructure of the target nation, and would probably have a devastating effect on Earth's biosphere.[3][15]

text: Some Cold War strategists such as Henry Kissinger[16] argued that a limited nuclear war could be possible between two heavily armed superpowers (such as the United States and the Soviet Union). Some predict, however, that a limited war could potentially "escalate" into a full-scale nuclear war. Others[who?] have called limited nuclear war "global nuclear holocaust in slow motion", arguing that—once such a war took place—others would be sure to follow over a period of decades, effectively rendering the planet uninhabitable in the same way that a "full-scale nuclear war" between superpowers would, only taking a much longer (and arguably more agonizing) path to the same result.

text: Even the most optimistic predictions[by whom?] of the effects of a major nuclear exchange foresee the death of many millions of victims within a very short period of time. More pessimistic predictions argue that a full-scale nuclear war could potentially bring about the extinction of the human race, or at least its near extinction, with only a relatively small number of survivors (mainly in remote areas) and a reduced quality of life and life expectancy for centuries afterward. However, such predictions, assuming total war with nuclear arsenals at Cold War highs, have not been without criticism.[7] Such a horrific catastrophe as global nuclear warfare would almost certainly cause permanent damage to most complex life on the planet, its ecosystems, and the global climate. If predictions about the production of a nuclear winter are accurate, it would also change the balance of global power, with countries such as Australia, New Zealand, India, China, Argentina and Brazil predicted to become world superpowers if the Cold War ever led to a large-scale nuclear attack.[8]

text: A study presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2006 asserted that even a small-scale regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more. In a regional nuclear conflict scenario in which two opposing nations in the subtropics each used 50 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons (c. 15 kiloton each) on major population centers, the researchers predicted fatalities ranging from 2.6 million to 16.7 million per country. The authors of the study estimated that as much as five million tons of soot could be released, producing a cooling of several degrees over large areas of North America and Eurasia (including most of the grain-growing regions). The cooling would last for years and could be "catastrophic", according to the researchers.[17]

text: Either a limited or full-scale nuclear exchange could occur during an accidental nuclear war, in which the use of nuclear weapons is triggered unintentionally. Postulated triggers for this scenario have included malfunctioning early warning devices and/or targeting computers, deliberate malfeasance by rogue military commanders, consequences of an accidental straying of warplanes into enemy airspace, reactions to unannounced missile tests during tense diplomatic periods, reactions to military exercises, mistranslated or miscommunicated messages, and others. A number of these scenarios actually occurred during the Cold War, though none resulted in the use of nuclear weapons.[18] Many such scenarios have been depicted in popular culture, such as in the 1962 novel Fail-Safe (released as a film in 1964), the film WarGames, released in 1983 and the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, also released in 1964.

text: History[edit]

text: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki[edit]

text: During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted atomic raids on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events were the only times nuclear weapons have been used in combat.[19]

text: For six months before the atomic bombings, the U.S. 20th Air Force under General Curtis LeMay executed low-level incendiary raids against Japanese cities. The worst air raid to occur during the process was not the nuclear attacks, but the Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo. On the night of March 9–10, 1945, Operation Meetinghouse commenced and 334 Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers took off to raid, with 279 of them dropping 1,665 tons of incendiaries and explosives on Tokyo. The bombing was meant to burn wooden buildings and indeed the bombing caused fire that created a 50 m/s wind, which is comparable to tornadoes. Each bomber carried 6 tons of bombs. A total of 381,300 bombs, which amount to 1,783 tons of bombs, were used in the bombing. Within a few hours of the raid, it had killed an estimated 100,000 people and destroyed 41 km2 (16 sq mi) of the city and 267,000 buildings in a single night — the deadliest bombing raid in military aviation history other than the atomic raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[20][21][22][23] By early August 1945, an estimated 450,000 people had died as the U.S. had intensely firebombed a total of 67 Japanese cities.

text: In late June 1945, as the U.S. wrapped up the two-and-a-half-month Battle of Okinawa (which cost the lives of 260,000 people, including 150,000 civilians),[24][25] it was faced with the prospect of invading the Japanese home islands in an operation codenamed Operation Downfall. Based on the U.S. casualties from the preceding island-hopping campaigns, American commanders estimated that between 50,000 and 500,000 U.S. troops would die and at least 600,000–1,000,000 others would be injured while invading the Japanese home islands. The U.S. manufacture of 500,000 Purple Hearts from the anticipated high level of casualties during the U.S. invasion of Japan gave a demonstration of how deadly and costly it would be. President Harry S. Truman realized he could not afford such a horrendous casualty rate, especially since over 400,000 American combatants had already died fighting in both the European and the Pacific theaters of the war.[26]

text: On July 26, 1945, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of China issued a Potsdam Declaration that called for the unconditional surrender of Japan. It stated that if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction".[27][28] The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum, sending a message that they were not going to surrender. In response to the rejection, President Truman authorized the dropping of the atomic bombs. At the time of its use, there were only two atomic bombs available, and despite the fact that more were in production back in mainland U.S., the third bomb wouldn't be available for combat until September.[29][30]

text: On August 6, 1945, the uranium-type nuclear weapon codenamed "Little Boy" was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima with an energy of about 15 kilotons of TNT (63,000 gigajoules), destroying nearly 50,000 buildings (including the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division) and killing approximately 70,000 people, including 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers.[31][32] Three days later, on August 9, a plutonium-type nuclear weapon codenamed "Fat Man" was used against the Japanese city of Nagasaki, with the explosion equivalent to about 20 kilotons of TNT (84,000 gigajoules), destroying 60% of the city and killing approximately 35,000 people, including 23,200–28,200 Japanese munitions workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese combatants.[33] The industrial damage in Nagasaki was high, partly owing to the inadvertent targeting of the industrial zone, leaving 68–80 percent of the non-dock industrial production destroyed.[34]

text: Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers on August 15, 1945, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, 1945, officially ending the Pacific War and, therefore, World War II, as Germany had already signed its Instrument of Surrender on May 7, 1945, ending the war in Europe. The two atomic bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan's adopting of the Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which forbade the nation from developing nuclear armaments.[35]

text: Immediately after the Japan bombings[edit]

text: After the successful Trinity nuclear test July 16, 1945, which was the very first nuclear detonation, the Manhattan project lead manager J. Robert Oppenheimer recalled:

text: We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multiarmed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another.

text: Immediately after the atomic bombings of Japan, the status of atomic weapons in international and military relations was unclear. Presumably, the United States hoped atomic weapons could offset the Soviet Union's larger conventional ground forces in Eastern Europe, and possibly be used to pressure Soviet leader Joseph Stalin into making concessions. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union pursued its own atomic capabilities through a combination of scientific research and espionage directed against the American program. The Soviets believed that the Americans, with their limited nuclear arsenal, were unlikely to engage in any new world wars, while the Americans were not confident they could prevent a Soviet takeover of Europe, despite their atomic advantage.

text: Within the United States the authority to produce and develop nuclear weapons was removed from military control and put instead under the civilian control of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. This decision reflected an understanding that nuclear weapons had unique risks and benefits that were separate from other military technology known at the time.

text: For several years after World War II, the United States developed and maintained a strategic force based on the Convair B-36 bomber that would be able to attack any potential enemy from bomber bases in the United States. It deployed atomic bombs around the world for potential use in conflicts. Over a period of a few years, many in the American defense community became increasingly convinced of the invincibility of the United States to a nuclear attack. Indeed, it became generally believed that the threat of nuclear war would deter any strike against the United States.

text: Many proposals were suggested to put all American nuclear weapons under international control (by the newly formed United Nations, for example) as an effort to deter both their usage and an arms race. However, no terms could be arrived at that would be agreed upon by both the United States and the Soviet Union.[dubious – discuss] [according to whom?]

text: On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan (see also Soviet atomic bomb project). Scientists in the United States from the Manhattan Project had warned that, in time, the Soviet Union would certainly develop nuclear capabilities of its own. Nevertheless, the effect upon military thinking and planning in the United States was dramatic, primarily because American military strategists had not anticipated the Soviets would "catch up" so soon. However, at this time, they had not discovered that the Soviets had conducted significant nuclear espionage of the project from spies at Los Alamos, the most significant of which was done by the theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs.[citation needed] The first Soviet bomb was more or less a deliberate copy of the Fat Man plutonium device. In the same year the first US-Soviet nuclear war plan was penned in the US with Operation Dropshot.

text: With the monopoly over nuclear technology broken, worldwide nuclear proliferation accelerated. The United Kingdom tested its first independent atomic bomb in 1952, followed by France in 1960 and then China in 1964. While much smaller than the arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union, Western Europe's nuclear reserves were nevertheless a significant factor in strategic planning during the Cold War. A top-secret White Paper, compiled by the Royal Air Force and produced for the British Government in 1959, estimated that British bombers carrying nuclear weapons were capable of destroying key cities and military targets in the Soviet Union, with an estimated 16 million deaths in the Soviet Union (half of whom were estimated to be killed on impact and the rest fatally injured) before bomber aircraft from the U.S. Strategic Air Command reached their targets.

text: Although the Soviet Union had nuclear weapon capabilities in the beginning of the Cold War, the United States still had an advantage in terms of bombers and weapons. In any exchange of hostilities, the United States would have been capable of bombing the Soviet Union, whereas the Soviet Union would have more difficulty carrying out the reverse mission.

text: The widespread introduction of jet-powered interceptor aircraft upset this imbalance somewhat by reducing the effectiveness of the American bomber fleet. In 1949 Curtis LeMay was placed in command of the Strategic Air Command and instituted a program to update the bomber fleet to one that was all-jet. During the early 1950s the B-47 and B-52 were introduced, providing the ability to bomb the Soviet Union more easily. Before the development of a capable strategic missile force in the Soviet Union, much of the war-fighting doctrine held by western nations revolved around using a large number of smaller nuclear weapons in a tactical role. It is debatable whether such use could be considered "limited" however, because it was believed that the United States would use its own strategic weapons (mainly bombers at the time) should the Soviet Union deploy any kind of nuclear weapon against civilian targets. Douglas MacArthur, an American general, was fired by President Harry Truman, partially because he persistently requested permission to use his own discretion in deciding whether to utilize atomic weapons on the People's Republic of China in 1951 during the Korean War.[37] Mao Zedong, China's communist leader, gave the impression that he would welcome a nuclear war with the capitalists because it would annihilate what he viewed as their "imperialist" system.[38][39]

text: Let us imagine how many people would die if war breaks out. There are 2.7 billion people in the world, and a third could be lost. If it is a little higher it could be half ... I say that if the worst came to the worst and one-half dies, there will still be one-half left, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist. After a few years there would be 2.7 billion people again.

text: The concept of a "Fortress North America" emerged during the Second World War and persisted into the Cold War to refer to the option of defending Canada and the United States against their enemies if the rest of the world were lost to them. This option was rejected with the formation of NATO and the decision to permanently station troops in Europe.

text: In the summer of 1951 Project Vista started, in which project analysts such as Robert F. Christy looked at how to defend Western Europe from a Soviet invasion. The emerging development of tactical nuclear weapons were looked upon as a means to give Western forces a qualitative advantage over the Soviet numerical supremacy in conventional weapons.[41]

text: Several scares about the increasing ability of the Soviet Union's strategic bomber forces surfaced during the 1950s. The defensive response by the United States was to deploy a fairly strong "layered defense" consisting of interceptor aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles, like the Nike, and guns, like the Skysweeper, near larger cities. However, this was a small response compared to the construction of a huge fleet of nuclear bombers. The principal nuclear strategy was to massively penetrate the Soviet Union. Because such a large area could not be defended against this overwhelming attack in any credible way, the Soviet Union would lose any exchange.

text: This logic became ingrained in American nuclear doctrine and persisted for much of the duration of the Cold War. As long as the strategic American nuclear forces could overwhelm their Soviet counterparts, a Soviet pre-emptive strike could be averted. Moreover, the Soviet Union could not afford to build any reasonable counterforce, as the economic output of the United States was far larger than that of the Soviets, and they would be unable to achieve "nuclear parity".

text: Soviet nuclear doctrine, however, did not match American nuclear doctrine.[42][43] Soviet military planners assumed they could win a nuclear war.[42][44][45] Therefore, they expected a large-scale nuclear exchange, followed by a "conventional war" which itself would involve heavy use of tactical nuclear weapons. American doctrine rather assumed that Soviet doctrine was similar, with the mutual in Mutually Assured Destruction necessarily requiring that the other side see things in much the same way, rather than believing—as the Soviets did—that they could fight a large-scale, "combined nuclear and conventional" war.

text: In accordance with their doctrine, the Soviet Union conducted large-scale military exercises to explore the possibility of defensive and offensive warfare during a nuclear war. The exercise, under the code name of "Snowball", involved the detonation of a nuclear bomb about twice as powerful as that which fell on Nagasaki and an army of approximately 45,000 soldiers on maneuvers through the hypocenter immediately after the blast.[46] The exercise was conducted on September 14, 1954, under command of Marshal Georgy Zhukov to the north of Totskoye village in Orenburg Oblast, Russia.

text: A revolution in nuclear strategic thought occurred with the introduction of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which the Soviet Union first successfully tested in August 1957. In order to deliver a warhead to a target, a missile was much faster and more cost-effective than a bomber, and enjoyed a higher survivability due to the enormous difficulty of interception of the ICBMs (due to their high altitude and extreme speed). The Soviet Union could now afford to achieve nuclear parity with the United States in raw numbers, although for a time, they appeared to have chosen not to.

text: Photos of Soviet missile sites set off a wave of panic in the U.S. military, something the launch of Sputnik would do for the American public a few months later. Politicians, notably then-U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy suggested that a "missile gap" existed between the Soviet Union and the United States. The US military gave missile development programs the highest national priority, and several spy aircraft and reconnaissance satellites were designed and deployed to observe Soviet progress.

text: Early ICBMs and bombers were relatively inaccurate, which led to the concept of countervalue strikes — attacks directly on the enemy population, which would theoretically lead to a collapse of the enemy's will to fight. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union invested in extensive protected civilian infrastructure, such as large "nuclear-proof" bunkers and non-perishable food stores. By comparison, smaller scale civil defense programs were instituted in the United States starting in the 1950s, where schools and other public buildings had basements stocked with non-perishable food supplies, canned water, first aid, and dosimeter and Geiger counter radiation-measuring devices. Many of the locations were given "Fallout shelter" designation signs. CONELRAD radio information systems were adopted, whereby the commercial radio sector (later supplemented by the National Emergency Alarm Repeaters) would broadcast on two AM frequencies in the event of a Civil Defense (CD) emergency. These two frequencies, 640 and 1240 kHz, were marked with small CD triangles on the tuning dial of radios of the period, as can still be seen on 1950s-vintage radios on online auction sites and museums. A few backyard fallout shelters were built by private individuals.

text: Henry Kissinger's view on tactical nuclear war in his controversial 1957 book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy was that any nuclear weapon exploded in air burst mode that was below 500 kiloton in yield and thus averting serious fallout, may be more decisive and less costly in human lives than a protracted conventional war.

text: A list of targets made by the U.S.A. was released sometime during December 2015 by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. The language used to describe targets is "designated ground zeros". The list was released after a request was made during 2006 by William Burr who belongs to a research group at George Washington University, and belongs to a previously top-secret 800-page document. The list is entitled "Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959" and was produced by U.S. Strategic Air Command during the year 1956.[47]

text: In 1960, the United States developed its first Single Integrated Operational Plan, a range of targeting options, and described launch procedures and target sets against which nuclear weapons would be launched, variants of which were in use from 1961 to 2003. That year also saw the start of the Missile Defense Alarm System, an American system of 12 early-warning satellites that provided limited notice of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile launches between 1960 and 1966. The Ballistic Missile Early Warning System was completed in 1964.

text: A complex and worrisome situation developed in 1962, in what is called the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Soviet Union placed medium-range ballistic missiles 90 miles (140 km) from the United States, possibly as a direct response to American Jupiter missiles placed in Turkey. After intense negotiations, the Soviets ended up removing the missiles from Cuba and decided to institute a massive weapons-building program of their own. In exchange, the United States dismantled its launch sites in Turkey, although this was done secretly and not publicly revealed for over two decades. Khrushchev did not even reveal this part of the agreement when he came under fire by political opponents for mishandling the crisis. Communication delays during the crisis led to the establishment of the Moscow–Washington hotline to allow reliable, direct communications between the two nuclear powers.

text: By the late 1960s, the number of ICBMs and warheads was so high on both sides that it was believed that both the United States and the Soviet Union were capable of completely destroying the infrastructure and a large proportion of the population of the other country. Thus, by some western game theorists, a balance of power system known as mutually assured destruction (or MAD) came into being. It was thought that no full-scale exchange between the powers would result in an outright winner, with at best one side emerging the pyrrhic victor. Thus both sides were deterred from risking the initiation of a direct confrontation, instead being forced to engage in lower intensity proxy wars.

text: During this decade the People's Republic of China began to build subterranean infrastructure such as the Underground Project 131 following the Sino-Soviet split.

text: One drawback of the MAD doctrine was the possibility of a nuclear war occurring without either side intentionally striking first. Early Warning Systems (EWS) were notoriously error-prone. For example, on 78 occasions in 1979 alone, a "missile display conference" was called to evaluate detections that were "potentially threatening to the North American continent". Some of these were trivial errors and were spotted quickly, but several went to more serious levels. On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov received convincing indications of an American first strike launch against the Soviet Union, but positively identified the warning as a false alarm. Though it is unclear what role Petrov's actions played in preventing a nuclear war during this incident, he has been honored by the United Nations for his actions.

text: Similar incidents happened many times in the United States, due to failed computer chips,[48] misidentifications of large flights of geese, test programs, and bureaucratic failures to notify early warning military personnel of legitimate launches of test or weather missiles. For many years, the U.S. Air Force's strategic bombers were kept airborne on a daily rotating basis "around the clock" (see Operation Chrome Dome), until the number and severity of accidents, the 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash in particular, persuaded policymakers it was not worthwhile.

text: Israel responded to the Arab Yom Kippur War attack on 6 October 1973 by assembling 13 nuclear weapons in a tunnel under the Negev desert when Syrian tanks were sweeping in across the Golan Heights. On 8 October 1973, Israeli Prime Minister Mrs Golda Meir authorized Defense Minister Moshe Dayan to activate the 13 Israeli nuclear warheads and distribute them to Israeli air force units, with the intent that they be used if Israel began to be overrun.[49]

text: On 24 October 1973, as US President Nixon was preoccupied with the Watergate scandal, Henry Kissinger ordered a DEFCON-3 alert preparing American B-52 nuclear bombers for war. Intelligence reports indicated that the USSR was preparing to defend Egypt in its Yom Kippur war with Israel. It had become apparent that if Israel had dropped nuclear weapons on Egypt or Syria, as it prepared to do, then the USSR would have retaliated against Israel, with the US then committed to providing Israeli assistance, possibly escalating to a general nuclear war.[49]

text: By the late 1970s, people in both the United States and the Soviet Union, along with the rest of the world, had been living with the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD) for about a decade, and it became deeply ingrained into the psyche and popular culture of those countries.

text: On May 18, 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test in the Pokhran test range. The name of the operation was Smiling Buddha, and India termed the test as a "peaceful nuclear explosion".

text: The Soviet Duga-3 early warning over-the-horizon radar system was made operational in 1976. The extremely powerful radio transmissions needed for such a system led to much disruption of civilian shortwave broadcasts, earning it the nickname "Russian Woodpecker".

text: The idea that any nuclear conflict would eventually escalate was a challenge for military strategists. This challenge was particularly severe for the United States and its NATO allies. It was believed (until the 1970s) that a Soviet tank invasion of Western Europe would quickly overwhelm NATO conventional forces, leading to the necessity of the West escalating to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, one of which was the W-70.

text: This strategy had one major (and possibly critical) flaw, which was soon realized by military analysts but highly underplayed by the U.S. military: conventional NATO forces in the European theatre of war were far outnumbered by similar Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces, and it was assumed that in case of a major Soviet attack (commonly envisioned as the "Red tanks rolling towards the North Sea" scenario) that NATO—in the face of quick conventional defeat—would soon have no other choice but to resort to tactical nuclear strikes against these forces. Most analysts agreed that once the first nuclear exchange had occurred, escalation to global nuclear war would likely become inevitable. The Soviet bloc's vision of an atomic war between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces was simulated in the top secret exercise Seven Days to the River Rhine in 1979. The British government exercised their vision of Soviet nuclear attack with Square Leg in early 1980.

text: Large hardened nuclear weapon storage areas were built across European countries in anticipation of local US and European forces falling back as the conventional NATO defense from the Soviet Union, named REFORGER, was believed to only be capable of stalling the Soviets for a short time.

text: In the late 1970s and, particularly, during the early 1980s under U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the United States renewed its commitment to a more powerful military, which required a large increase in spending on U.S. military programs. These programs, which were originally part of the defense budget of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, included spending on conventional and nuclear weapons systems. Under Reagan, defensive systems like the Strategic Defense Initiative were emphasized as well.

text: Another major shift in nuclear doctrine was the development and the improvement of the submarine-launched, nuclear-armed, ballistic missile, or SLBM. It was hailed by many military theorists as a weapon that would make nuclear war less likely. SLBMs—which can move with "stealth" (greatly lessened detectability) virtually anywhere in the world—give a nation a "second strike" capability (i.e., after absorbing a "first strike"). Before the advent of the SLBM, thinkers feared that a nation might be tempted to initiate a first strike if it felt confident that such a strike would incapacitate the nuclear arsenal of its enemy, making retaliation impossible. With the advent of SLBMs, no nation could be certain that a first strike would incapacitate its enemy's entire nuclear arsenal. To the contrary, it would have to fear a near certain retaliatory second strike from SLBMs. Thus, a first strike was a much less feasible (or desirable) option, and a deliberately initiated nuclear war was thought to be less likely to start.

text: However, it was soon realized that submarines could approach enemy coastlines undetected and decrease the warning time (the time between detection of the missile launch and the impact of the missile) from as much as half an hour to possibly under three minutes. This effect was especially significant to the United States, Britain and China, whose capitals all lay within 100 miles (160 km) of their coasts. Moscow was much more secure from this type of threat, due to its considerable distance from the sea. This greatly increased the credibility of a "surprise first strike" by one faction and (theoretically) made it possible to knock out or disrupt the chain of command of a target nation before any counterstrike could be ordered (known as a "decapitation strike"). It strengthened the notion that a nuclear war could possibly be "won", resulting not only in greatly increased tensions and increasing calls for fail-deadly control systems, but also in a dramatic increase in military spending. The submarines and their missile systems were very expensive, and one fully equipped nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed missile submarine could cost more than the entire GNP of a developing country.[51] It was also calculated, however, that the greatest cost came in the development of both sea- and land-based anti-submarine defenses and in improving and strengthening the "chain of command", and as a result, military spending skyrocketed.

text: South Africa developed a nuclear weapon capability during the 1970s and early 1980s. It was operational for a brief period before being dismantled in the early 1990s.

text: According to the 1980 United Nations report General and Complete Disarmament: Comprehensive Study on Nuclear Weapons: Report of the Secretary-General, it was estimated that there were a total of about 40,000 nuclear warheads in existence at that time, with a potential combined explosive yield of approximately 13,000 megatons. By comparison, when the volcano Mount Tambora erupted in 1815—turning 1816 into the Year Without A Summer due to the levels of global dimming sulfate aerosols and ash expelled—it exploded with a force of roughly 800 to 1,000 megatons,[citation needed] and ejected 160 km3 (38 cu mi) of mostly rock/tephra,[52] that included 120 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide as an upper estimate.[53] A larger eruption, approximately 74,000 years ago, in Mount Toba produced 2,800 km3 (670 cu mi) of tephra, forming lake Toba,[54] and produced an estimated 6,000 million tonnes (6.6×109 short tons) of sulfur dioxide.[55][56] The explosive energy of the eruption may have been as high as equivalent to 20,000,000 megatons (Mt) of TNT,[57] while the asteroid created Chicxulub impact, that is connected with the extinction of the dinosaurs corresponds to at least 70,000,000 Mt of energy, which is roughly 7000 times the maximum arsenal of the US and Soviet Union.[57]

text: However, comparisons with supervolcanoes are more misleading than helpful due to the different aerosols released, the likely air burst fuzing height of nuclear weapons and the globally scattered location of these potential nuclear detonations all being in contrast to the singular and subterranean nature of a supervolcanic eruption.[6] Moreover, assuming the entire world stockpile of weapons were grouped together, it would be difficult, due to the nuclear fratricide effect, to ensure the individual weapons would go off all at once. Nonetheless, many people believe that a full-scale nuclear war would result, through the nuclear winter effect, in the extinction of the human species, though not all analysts agree on the assumptions that underpin these nuclear winter models.[7]

text: On Sept. 1, 1983, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by Soviet jet fighters. On the 26th, a Soviet early warning station under the command of Stanislav Petrov falsely detected 5 inbound intercontinental ballistic missiles from the US. Petrov correctly assessed the situation as a false alarm, and hence did not report his finding to his superiors. It is quite possible that his actions prevented "World War III", as the Soviet policy at that time was immediate nuclear response upon discovering inbound ballistic missiles.[citation needed]

text: The world came unusually close to nuclear war when the Soviet Union thought that the NATO military exercise Able Archer 83 was a ruse or "cover-up" to begin a nuclear first strike. The Soviets responded by raising readiness and preparing their nuclear arsenal for immediate use. Soviet fears of an attack ceased once the exercise concluded without incident.

text: Post-Cold War[edit]

text: Although the dissolution of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War and greatly reduced tensions between the United States and the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union's formal successor state, both countries remained in a "nuclear stand-off" due to the continuing presence of a very large number of deliverable nuclear warheads on both sides. Additionally, the end of the Cold War led the United States to become increasingly concerned with the development of nuclear technology by other nations outside of the former Soviet Union. In 1995, a branch of the U.S. Strategic Command produced an outline of forward-thinking strategies in the document "Essentials of Post–Cold War Deterrence".

text: In 1996, a Russian continuity of government facility, Kosvinsky Mountain, which is believed to be a counterpart to the US Cheyenne Mountain Complex, was completed.[58][59][60] It was designed to resist US earth-penetrating nuclear warheads,[58] and is believed to host the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces alternate command post, a post for the general staff built to compensate for the vulnerability of older Soviet era command posts in the Moscow region. In spite of this, the primary command posts for the Strategic Rocket Forces remains Kuntsevo in Moscow and the secondary is the Kosvinsky Mountain in the Urals.[61] The timing of the Kosvinsky facilities completion date is regarded as one explanation for U.S. interest in a new nuclear "bunker buster" Earth-penetrating warhead and the declaration of the deployment of the B-61 mod 11 in 1997; Kosvinsky is protected by about 1000 feet of granite.[60]

text: As a consequence of the 9/11 attacks, American forces immediately increased their readiness to the highest level in 28 years, closing the blast doors of the NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center for the first time due to a non-exercise event. But unlike similar increases during the Cold War, Russia immediately decided to stand down a large military exercise in the Arctic region, in order to minimize the risk of incidents, rather than following suit.[62]

text: The former chair of the United Nations disarmament committee stated that there are more than 16,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons ready for deployment and another 14,000 in storage, with the U.S. having nearly 7,000 ready for use and 3,000 in storage, and Russia having about 8,500 ready for use and 11,000 in storage. In addition, China is thought to possess about 400 nuclear weapons, Britain about 200, France about 350, India about 80–100, and Pakistan 100–110. North Korea is confirmed as having nuclear weapons, though it is not known how many, with most estimates between 1 and 10. Israel is also widely believed to possess usable nuclear weapons. NATO has stationed about 480 American nuclear weapons in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and Turkey, and several other nations are thought to be in pursuit of an arsenal of their own.[63]

text: Pakistan's nuclear policy was significantly affected by the 1965 war with India.[64] The 1971 war and India's nuclear program played a role in Pakistan's decision to go nuclear.[65] India and Pakistan both decided not to participate in the NPT.[66] Pakistan's nuclear policy became fixated on India because India refused to join the NPT and remain opened to nuclear weapons.[67] Impetus by Indian actions spurred Pakistan's nuclear research.[68] After nuclear weapons construction was started by Bhutto's command, the chair of Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Usmani quit in objection.[69] The 1999 war between Pakistan and India occurred after both acquired nuclear weapons.[70] It is believed by some that nuclear weapons are the reason a big war has not broken out in the subcontinent.[71] India and Pakistan still have a risk of nuclear conflict on the issue of war over Kashmir.[72] Nuclear capability deliverable by sea were claimed by Pakistan in 2012.[73] The aim was to achieve a "minimum credible deterrence".[74] Pakistan's nuclear program culminated in the tests at Chagai.[75] One of the aims of Pakistan's programs is fending off potential annexation and maintaining independence.[76]

text: A key development in nuclear warfare throughout the 2000s and early 2010s is the proliferation of nuclear weapons to the developing world, with India and Pakistan both publicly testing several nuclear devices, and North Korea conducting an underground nuclear test on October 9, 2006. The U.S. Geological Survey measured a 4.2 magnitude earthquake in the area where the North Korean test is said to have occurred. A further test was announced by the North Korean government on May 25, 2009.[77] Iran, meanwhile, has embarked on a nuclear program which, while officially for civilian purposes, has come under close scrutiny by the United Nations and many individual states.

text: Recent studies undertaken by the CIA cite the enduring India-Pakistan conflict as the one "flash point" most likely to escalate into a nuclear war. During the Kargil War in 1999, Pakistan came close to using its nuclear weapons in case the conventional military situation underwent further deterioration.[78] Pakistan's foreign minister had even warned that it would "use any weapon in our arsenal", hinting at a nuclear strike against India.[79] The statement was condemned by the international community, with Pakistan denying it later on. This conflict remains the only war (of any sort) between two declared nuclear powers. The 2001-2002 India-Pakistan standoff again stoked fears of nuclear war between the two countries. Despite these very serious and relatively recent threats, relations between India and Pakistan have been improving somewhat over the last few years. However, with the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, tensions again worsened.

text: Another potential geopolitical issue which is considered particularly worrisome by military analysts is a possible conflict between the United States and the People's Republic of China over Taiwan. Although economic forces are thought to have reduced the possibility of a military conflict, there remains concern about the increasing military buildup of China (China is rapidly increasing its naval capacity), and that any move toward Taiwan independence could potentially spin out of control.

text: Israel is thought to possess somewhere between one hundred and four hundred nuclear warheads. It has been asserted that the Dolphin-class submarines which Israel received from Germany have been adapted to carry Popeye cruise missiles with nuclear warheads, so as to give Israel a second strike capability.[80] Israel has been involved in wars with its neighbors in the Middle East (and with other "non-state actors") on numerous prior occasions, and its small geographic size and population could mean that, in the event of future wars, the Israeli military might have very little time to react to an invasion or other major threat. Such a situation could escalate to nuclear warfare very quickly in some scenarios.

text: On March 7, 2013, North Korea threatened the United States with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.[81] On April 9, North Korea urged foreigners to leave South Korea, stating that both countries were on the verge of nuclear war.[82] On April 12, North Korea stated that a nuclear war was unavoidable. The country declared Japan as its first target.[83]

text: Sub-strategic use[edit]

text: The above examples envisage nuclear warfare at a strategic level, i.e., total war. However, nuclear powers have the ability to undertake more limited engagements.

text: "Sub-strategic use" includes the use of either "low-yield" tactical nuclear weapons, or of variable yield strategic nuclear weapons in a very limited role, as compared to battlefield exchanges of larger-yield strategic nuclear weapons. This was described by the UK Parliamentary Defence Select Committee as "the launch of one or a limited number of missiles against an adversary as a means of conveying a political message, warning or demonstration of resolve".[84] It is believed that all current nuclear weapons states possess tactical nuclear weapons, with the exception of the United Kingdom, which decommissioned its tactical warheads in 1998. However, the UK does possess scalable-yield strategic warheads, and this technology tends to blur the difference between "strategic", "sub-strategic", and "tactical" use or weapons. American, French and British nuclear submarines are believed to carry at least some missiles with dial-a-yield warheads for this purpose, potentially allowing a strike as low as one kiloton (or less) against a single target. Only the People's Republic of China and the Republic of India have declarative, unqualified, unconditional "no first use" nuclear weapons policies. India and Pakistan maintain only a credible minimum deterrence.

text: Commodore Tim Hare, former Director of Nuclear Policy at the British Ministry of Defence, has described "sub-strategic use" as offering the Government "an extra option in the escalatory process before it goes for an all-out strategic strike which would deliver unacceptable damage".[85] However, this sub-strategic capacity has been criticized as potentially increasing the "acceptability" of using nuclear weapons. Combined with the trend in the reduction in the worldwide nuclear arsenal as of 2007 is the warhead miniaturization and modernization of the remaining strategic weapons that is presently occurring in all the declared nuclear weapon states, into more "useable" configurations. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute suggests that this is creating a culture where use of these weapons is more acceptable and therefore is increasing the risk of war, as these modern weapons do not possess the same psychological deterrent value as the large Cold-War era, multi-megaton warheads.[86]

text: In many ways, this present change in the balance of terror can be seen as the complete embracement of the switch from the 1950s Eisenhower doctrine of "massive retaliation"[87] to one of "flexible response", which has been growing in importance in the US nuclear war fighting plan/SIOP every decade since.

text: For example, the United States adopted a policy in 1996 of allowing the targeting of its nuclear weapons at non-state actors ("terrorists") armed with weapons of mass destruction.[88]

text: Another dimension to the tactical use of nuclear weapons is that of such weapons deployed at sea for use against surface and submarine vessels. Until 1992, vessels of the United States Navy (and their aircraft) deployed various such weapons as bombs, rockets (guided and unguided), torpedoes, and depth charges. Such tactical naval nuclear weapons were considered more acceptable to use early in a conflict because there would be few civilian casualties. It was feared by many planners that such use would probably quickly have escalated into large-scale nuclear war.[89] This situation was particularly exacerbated by the fact that such weapons at sea were not constrained by the safeguards provided by the Permissive Action Link attached to U.S. Air Force and Army nuclear weapons. It is unknown if the navies of the other nuclear powers yet today deploy tactical nuclear weapons at sea.

text: Nuclear terrorism[edit]

text: Nuclear terrorism by non-state organizations or actors (even individuals) is a largely unknown and understudied factor in nuclear deterrence thinking, as states possessing nuclear weapons are susceptible to retaliation in kind, while sub- or trans-state actors may be less so. The collapse of the Soviet Union has given rise to the possibility that former Soviet nuclear weapons might become available on the black market (so-called 'loose nukes').

text: A number of other concerns have been expressed about the security of nuclear weapons in newer nuclear powers with relatively less stable governments, such as Pakistan, but in each case, the fears have been addressed to some extent by statements and evidence provided by those nations, as well as cooperative programs between nations. Worry remains, however, in many circles that a relative decrease in security of nuclear weapons has emerged in recent years, and that terrorists or others may attempt to exert control over (or use) nuclear weapons, militarily applicable technology, or nuclear materials and fuel.

text: Another possible nuclear terrorism threat are devices designed to disperse radioactive materials over a large area using conventional explosives, called dirty bombs. The detonation of a "dirty bomb" would not cause a nuclear explosion, nor would it release enough radiation to kill or injure a large number of people. However, it could cause severe disruption and require potentially very costly decontamination procedures and increased spending on security measures.[90]

text: Survival[edit]

text: The predictions of the effects of a major countervalue nuclear exchange include millions of city dweller deaths within a short period of time. Some 1980s predictions had gone further and argued that a full-scale nuclear war could eventually bring about the extinction of the human race.[3] Such predictions, sometimes but not always based on total war with nuclear arsenals at Cold War highs, received contemporary criticism.[7] A number of Cold War publications advocated preparations that could purportedly enable a large proportion of civilians to survive even a total nuclear war. Among the most famous of these is Nuclear War Survival Skills.[91]

text: To avoid injury and death from a nuclear weapons heat flash and blast effects, the two most far ranging prompt effects of nuclear weapons, schoolchildren were taught to duck and cover by the early Cold War film of the same name. Such advice is once again being given in case of nuclear terrorist attacks.[92]

text: Prussian blue, or "Radiogardase", is stockpiled in the US, along with potassium iodide and DPTA as pharmaceuticals useful in treating internal exposure to harmful radioisotopes in fallout.[93]

text: Publications on adapting to a changing diet and supplying nutritional food sources following a nuclear war, with particular focus on agricultural radioecology, include Nutrition in the postattack environment by the RAND corporation.[94]

text: The British government developed a public alert system for use during nuclear attack with the expectation of a four-minute warning before detonation. The United States expected a warning time of anywhere from half an hour (for land-based missiles) to less than three minutes (for submarine-based weapons). Many countries maintain plans for continuity of government and continuity of operations following a nuclear attack or similar disasters. These range from a designated survivor, intended to ensure survival of some form of government leadership, to the Soviet Dead Hand system, which allows for retaliation even if all Soviet leadership were destroyed. Nuclear submarines are given letters of last resort: orders on what action to take in the event that an enemy nuclear strike has destroyed the government.

text: A number of other countries around the world have taken significant efforts to maximize their survival prospects in the event of large calamities, both natural and manmade. For example, metro stations in Pyongyang, North Korea, were constructed 110 metres (360 ft) below ground, and were designed to serve as nuclear shelters in the event of war, with each station entrance built with thick steel blast doors.[95][96] An example of privately funded fallout shelters is the Ark Two Shelter in Ontario, Canada, and autonomous shelters have been constructed with an emphasis on post-war networking and reconstruction.[97] In Switzerland, the majority of homes have an underground blast and fallout shelter. The country has an overcapacity of such shelters and can accommodate slightly more than the nation's population size.[98][99]

text: In fiction[edit]

text: Nuclear warfare and weapons are staple elements of speculative fiction.


document_title: Father's Day

question_text: when was fathers day made a national holiday

question_tokens: when was fathers day made a national holiday

text: Father's Day

text: History and traditions[edit]

text: Early history[edit]

text: A customary day for the celebration of fatherhood in Catholic Europe is known to date back to at least the Middle Ages, and it is observed on 19 March, as the feast day of Saint Joseph, who is referred to as the fatherly Nutritor Domini ("Nourisher of the Lord") in Catholicism and "the putative father of Jesus" in southern European tradition. This celebration was brought to the Americas by the Spanish and Portuguese, and in Latin America, Father's Day is still celebrated on 19 March. The Catholic Church actively supported the custom of a celebration of fatherhood on St. Joseph's day from either the last years of the 14th century or from the early 15th century[citation needed], apparently on the initiative of the Franciscans[citation needed].

text: In the Coptic Church, the celebration of fatherhood is also observed on St Joseph's Day, but the Copts observe this celebration on July 20. This Coptic celebration may date back to the fifth century.[citation needed]

text: In the United States[edit]

text: Beginnings[edit]

text: Father's Day was not celebrated in the US, outside Catholic traditions, until the 20th century. As a civic celebration in the US, it was inaugurated in the early 20th century to complement Mother's Day by celebrating fathers and male parenting.

text: After Anna Jarvis' successful promotion of Mother's Day in Grafton, West Virginia, the first observance of a "Father's Day" was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West Virginia, in the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church.[1] Grace Golden Clayton was mourning the loss of her father, when  in December 1907, the Monongah Mining Disaster in nearby Monongah killed 361 men, 250 of them fathers, leaving around a thousand fatherless children. Clayton suggested that her pastor Robert Thomas Webb honor all those fathers.[2][3][4][5]

text: Clayton's event did not have repercussions outside Fairmont for several reasons, among them: the city was overwhelmed by other events, the celebration was never promoted outside the town itself and no proclamation of it was made by the city council. Also, two events overshadowed this event: the celebration of Independence Day July 4, 1908, with 12,000 attendants and several shows including a hot air balloon event, which took over the headlines in the following days, and the death of a 16-year-old girl on July 4. The local church and council were overwhelmed and they did not even think of promoting the event, and it was not celebrated again for many years. The original sermon was not reproduced by the press and it was lost. Finally, Clayton was a quiet person, who never promoted the event and never talked to other persons about it.[3][4][5]

text: Failed attempts at establishing a Father's Day[edit]

text: In 1911, Jane Addams proposed that a citywide Father's Day celebration be held in Chicago, but she was turned down.[6]

text: In 1912, there was a Father's Day celebration in Vancouver, Washington, suggested by Methodist pastor J.J. Berringer of the Irvington Methodist Church. They mistakenly believed that they had been the first to celebrate such a day.[1] They followed a 1911 suggestion by the Portland Oregonian.[6]

text: Harry C. Meek, a member of Lions Clubs International, claimed that he had first come up with the idea for Father's Day in 1915.[1][6] Meek said that the third Sunday in June was chosen because it was his birthday.[6] The Lions Club has named him the "Originator of Father's Day".[1] Meek made many efforts to promote Father's Day and make it an official holiday.[1][6]

text: Establishment of the holiday[edit]

text: On June 19, 1910, a Father's Day celebration was held at the YMCA in Spokane, Washington by Sonora Smart Dodd.[7][8] Her father, the civil war veteran William Jackson Smart, was a single parent who raised his six children there.[7] She was also a member of Old Centenary Presbyterian Church (now Knox Presbyterian Church),[9] where she first proposed the idea. After hearing a sermon about Jarvis' Mother's Day in 1909 at Central Methodist Episcopal Church, she told her pastor that fathers should have a similar holiday to honor them.[7] Although she initially suggested June 5, her father's birthday, the pastors did not have enough time to prepare their sermons, and the celebration was deferred to the third Sunday in June.[1][6] Several local clergymen accepted the idea, and on June 19, 1910, the first Father's Day, "sermons honoring fathers were presented throughout the city".[10]

text: However, in the 1920s, Dodd stopped promoting the celebration because she was studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, and it faded into relative obscurity, even in Spokane.[11] In the 1930s, Dodd returned to Spokane and started promoting the celebration again, raising awareness at a national level.[12] She had the help of those trade groups that would benefit most from the holiday, for example the manufacturers of ties, tobacco pipes, and any traditional present for fathers.[13] By 1938, she had the help of the Father's Day Council, founded by the New York Associated Men's Wear Retailers to consolidate and systematize the holiday's commercial promotion.[14] Americans resisted the holiday for its first few decades, viewing it as nothing more than an attempt by merchants to replicate the commercial success of Mother's Day, and newspapers frequently featured cynical and sarcastic attacks and jokes.[15] However, the said merchants remained resilient and even incorporated these attacks into their advertisements.[16] By the mid-1980s, the Father's Day Council wrote, "(...) [Father's Day] has become a Second Christmas for all the men's gift-oriented industries."[17]

text: A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913.[18] In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak at a Father's Day celebration[19] and he wanted to make it an officially recognized  federal holiday, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized.[20] US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed throughout the entire nation, but he stopped short at issuing a national proclamation.[19] Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress.[19][21] In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a Father's Day proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents".[21] In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day.[20] Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.[19][20][21][22]

text: In addition to Father's Day, International Men's Day is celebrated in many countries on November 19 in honor of men and boys who are not fathers.

text: Spelling[edit]

text: In the United States, Dodd used the "Fathers' Day" spelling on her original petition for the holiday,[7] but the spelling "Father's Day" was already used in 1913 when a bill was introduced to the U.S. Congress as the first attempt to establish the holiday,[18] and it was still spelled the same way when its creator was commended in 2008 by the U.S. Congress.[23]

text: Dates around the world[edit]

text: The officially recognized date of Father's Day varies from country to country. This section lists some significant examples, in order of date of observance.

text:
Gregorian calendar

Occurrence

Dates

Country

February 23

 Russia (Defender of the Fatherland Day[24])*

St Joseph's Day

March 19

 Andorra (Dia del Pare)
 Angola
 Belgium (Antwerp)
 Bolivia
 Croatia[25]
 Honduras[26]
 Italy (Festa del papà)
 Liechtenstein
 Mozambique (Dia do Pai)
 Portugal (Dia do Pai)
 Spain (Día del Padre)
  Switzerland (Canton Ticino)

May 7

 Kazakhstan

May 8

 South Korea (Parents' Day)

Second Sunday in May

May 14, 2017
May 13, 2018
May 12, 2019

 Romania[27] (Ziua Tatălui)

Third Sunday in May

May 21, 2017
May 20, 2018
May 19, 2019

 Tonga

Ascension Day

May 25, 2017
May 10, 2018
May 30, 2019

 Germany

First Sunday in June

Jun 4, 2017
Jun 3, 2018
Jun 2, 2019

 Lithuania (Tėvo diena)
  Switzerland

June 5

 Denmark[28] (also Constitution Day)

Second Sunday in June

Jun 11, 2017
Jun 10, 2018
Jun 9, 2019

 Austria
 Belgium

Third Sunday in June

Jun 18, 2017
Jun 17, 2018
Jun 16, 2019
Jun 21, 2020

 Afghanistan
 Algeria
 Albania
 Antigua and Barbuda
 Argentina[29]
 Aruba
 Bahamas
 Bahrain
 Bangladesh
 Barbados
 Belize
 Bermuda
 Bosnia and Herzegovina
 Brunei
 Bulgaria
 Burkina Faso
 Cambodia
 Canada
 Chad
 Chile[30]
 Colombia
 Comoros
 Costa Rica[31]
 Cuba[32]
 Curaçao
 Cyprus
 Czech Republic
 Dominica
 Ecuador
 Ethiopia
 France
 Georgia
 Ghana
 Greece
 Guyana
 Hong Kong
 Hungary
 India
 Ireland
 Isle of Man
 Ivory Coast
 Jamaica
 Japan
 Kenya
 Kuwait
 Laos
 Macao
 Mali
 Madagascar
 Malaysia
 Maldives
 Malta
 Mauritius
 Mexico[33]
 Mozambique (Nao e o dia)
 Myanmar
 Namibia
 Netherlands
 Nigeria
 Oman
 Pakistan
 Panama[34]
 Paraguay
 Peru[35]
 Philippines[36]
 Puerto Rico
 Qatar
 Saint Lucia
 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
 Saudi Arabia
 Senegal
 Singapore
 Sierra Leone
 Slovakia
 South Africa
 Sri Lanka
 Suriname
 Trinidad and Tobago
 Tunisia
 Turkey
 Uganda
 Ukraine[37]
 United Kingdom[38]
 United States
 Venezuela
 Vietnam
 Zambia
 Zimbabwe[39]

June 17

 El Salvador[40]
 Guatemala[41]

June 21

 Egypt
 Jordan
 Kosovo
 Lebanon
 Syria
 United Arab Emirates

June 22

 Guernsey
 Jersey

June 23

 Nicaragua
 Poland

Last Sunday in June

Jun 25, 2017
Jun 24, 2018
Jun 30, 2019

 Haiti

Second Sunday in July

Jul 9, 2017
Jul 8, 2018
Jul 14, 2019

 Uruguay

Last Sunday in July

Jul 30, 2017
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 28, 2019

 Dominican Republic

August 8

 China**
 Mongolia
 Taiwan

Second Sunday in August

Aug 13, 2017
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 11, 2019

 Brazil
 Samoa

Last Monday in August

Aug 28, 2017
Aug 27, 2018
Aug 26, 2019

 South Sudan

First Sunday in September

Sep 3, 2017
Sep 2, 2018
Sep 1, 2019

 Australia
 Fiji
 New Zealand
 Papua New Guinea

Second Sunday in September

Sep 10, 2017
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 8, 2019

 Latvia

First Sunday in October

Oct 1, 2017
Oct 7, 2018
Oct 6, 2019

 Luxembourg

Second Sunday in November

Nov 12, 2017
Nov 11, 2018
Nov 10, 2019

 Estonia (Isadepäev)
 Finland (Isänpäivä)
 Iceland
 Norway
 Sweden

November 12

 Indonesia

December 5

 Thailand (The birthday of King Bhumibol)[42]

Hindu calendar

Definition

Sample dates

Country/territory

Bhadrapada Amavasya(Gokarna Aunsi)

Between August 30 and September 30

   Nepal[43]

Islamic calendar

Occurrence

Sample dates

Country/territory

13 Rajab, Ali Ibn Abi Talib birthday

April 21, 2016
April 10, 2017

 Iran  Kuwait  Bahrain  Iraq  Oman  Qatar  Egypt  Yemen  Syria  Lebanon  Somalia  Sudan  Mauritania

tag: table

text:
*Officially, as the name suggests, the holiday celebrates people who are serving or were serving the Russian Armed Forces (both men and women). But the congratulations are traditionally, nationally accepted by all fathers, other adult men and male children as well.
**There is no official Father's Day of the P.R. China. During the Republican period prior to 1949, Father's Day on August 8 was first celebrated in Shanghai in 1945.

text: International history and traditions[edit]

text: Argentina[edit]

text: Father's Day in Argentina is celebrated on the third Sunday of June.

text: There have been attempts to change the date to August 24, to commemorate the day on which the Father of the Nation José de San Martín became a father.[29] In 1953, the proposal to celebrate Father's Day in all educational establishments on August 24, in honor of José de San Martín, was raised to the General Direction of Schools of Mendoza Province. The day was celebrated for the first time in 1958, on the third Sunday of June, but it was not included in the school calendars due to pressure from several groups.[44]

text: Schools in the Mendoza Province continued to celebrate Father's Day on August 24, and, in 1982, the provincial governor passed a law declaring Father's Day in the province to be celebrated on that day.[44]

text: In 2004, a proposal to change the date to August 24 were presented to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies as a single, unified project.

text: Aruba[edit]

text: In Aruba, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.

text: Australia[edit]

text: In Australia, Father's Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September, which is the first Sunday of Spring in Australia, and is not a public holiday.  At school, children handcraft their present for their fathers. Consumer goods companies have all sorts of special offers for fathers: socks, ties, electronics, suits, and men's healthcare products. Most families present fathers with gifts and cards, and share a meal to show appreciation, much like Mother's Day.

text: YMCA Victoria continues the tradition of honouring the role fathers and father figures play in parenting through the annual awarding of Local Community Father of the Year in 32 municipalities in Victoria. The Father's Day Council of Victoria annually recognises fathers in the Father of the Year Award.[45]

text: Austria[edit]

text: In Austria, Father's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of June and it is not a public holiday.

text: Belgium[edit]

text: In Belgium, Father's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of June and it is not a public holiday.

text: Brazil[edit]

text: In Brazil Father's Day (Dia dos Pais, in Portuguese) is celebrated three months after Mother's Day, on the second Sunday of August. Publicist Sylvio Bhering picked the day in honor of Saint Joachim, patron of fathers. While it is not an official holiday (see Public holidays in Brazil), it is widely observed and typically involves spending time with and giving gifts to one's father or father figure.

text: Canada[edit]

text: In Canada, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday. Father's Day typically involves spending time with one's father or the father figures in one's life. Small family gatherings and the giving of gifts may be part of the festivities organized for Father's Day.

text: China[edit]

text: In People's Republic of China, there is no official Father's Day. Some people celebrate on the third Sunday of June, according to the tradition of the United States.

text: Prior to the People's Republic, when the Republic of China governed from Nanjing, Father's Day was celebrated on August 8. This was determined by the fact that the eighth (ba) day of the eighth (ba) month makes two "eights" (八八, ba-ba), which sounds similar to the colloquial word for "daddy" (ba-ba，爸爸). It is still celebrated on this date in areas still under the control of the Republic of China, including Taiwan.

text: Costa Rica[edit]

text: In Costa Rica, the Unidad Social Cristiana party presented a bill to change the celebration of Father's Day from the third Sunday of June to March 19, the day of Saint Joseph.[46] That was in order to give tribute to this saint, who gave his name to the capital of the country San José, Costa Rica, and so family heads will be able to celebrate the Father's Day at the same time as the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker.[31] The official date is still the third Sunday of June.

text: Croatia[edit]

text: In Croatia, according to the Roman Catholic tradition, fathers are celebrated on Saint Joseph's Day (Dan svetog Josipa), March 19. It is not a public holiday.

text: Denmark[edit]

text: In Denmark, Father's Day is celebrated on June 5.[28] It coincides with Constitution Day.

text: Estonia[edit]

text: In Estonia, Father's day ("Isadepäev") is celebrated on the second Sunday of November. It is an established flag day and a national holiday.

text: Finland[edit]

text: In Finland, Father's Day (Isänpäivä, Fars dag) is celebrated on the second Sunday of November. It is an established flag day.

text: France[edit]

text: In France lighter manufacturer "Flaminaire" introduced the idea of father's day first in 1949 for commercial reasons. Director "Marcel Quercia" wanted to sell their lighter in France. In 1950, they introduced "la Fête des Pères", which would take place every third Sunday of June (following the American example). Their slogan « Nos papas nous l'ont dit, pour la fête des pères, ils désirent tous un Flaminaire » (Our fathers told us, for father's day, they all want a Flaminaire). In 1952, the holiday was officially decreed. A national father's day committee was set up to give a prize for fathers that deserved it most (originally, candidates were nominated by the social services of each town hall's/mayor's office); This complements "la Fête des Mères" (Mother's day) which was made official in France in 1928 and added to the calendar in Vichy in 1941.

text: Germany[edit]

text: In Germany, Father's Day (Vatertag) is celebrated differently from other parts of the world.[47] It is always celebrated on Ascension Day (the Thursday forty days after Easter), which is a federal holiday. Regionally, it is also called men's day, Männertag, or gentlemen's day, Herrentag. It is a tradition for groups of males (young and old but usually excluding pre-teenage boys) to do a hiking tour with one or more smaller wagons, Bollerwagen, pulled by manpower. In the wagons are wine or beer bottles (according to the region) and traditional regional food, Hausmannskost. Many men use this holiday as an opportunity to get drunk.[47] According to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, alcohol-related traffic accidents multiply by three on this day.[48] The tradition of Father's Day is especially prevalent in Eastern Germany.[47]

text: These traditions are probably rooted in Christian Ascension Day's processions to the farmlands, which has been celebrated since the 18th century.[49][50] Men would be seated in a wooden cart and carried to the village's plaza, and the mayor would award a prize to the father who had the most children, usually a big piece of ham.[49] In the late 19th century the religious component was progressively lost, especially in urban areas such as Berlin, and groups of men organized walking excursions with beer and ham.[49] By the 20th century, alcohol consumption had become a major part of the tradition.[49][51] Many people will take the following Friday off at work, and some schools are closed on that Friday as well; many people then use the resulting four-day-long weekend for a short vacation.

text: Greece[edit]

text:
Father's Day, is observed on the feast day of Fathers, It is celebrated as a public international day, like in many other countries including the U.S., on the third Sunday of June.
In Europe like in the rest of the world, it became a manifestation of divorced fathers, and the day was inaugurated by Professor Dr Nicolas Spitalas (http://spitalas.blogspot.com) who created
also the International Movement of Dads. His Association SYGAPA (Men's and Fathers' Dignity (www.sos-sygapa.eu) is the biggest movement in the world (35.000 members).
In Greece, like in other European countries, this day is named (Fête des Peres/Feast of Fathers)

text: Haiti[edit]

text: In Haiti, Father's Day (Fête des peres) is celebrated on the last Sunday of June and is not a public holiday. Fathers are recognized and celebrated on this day with cards, gifts, breakfast, lunch brunch or early Sunday dinner; whether enjoying the day at the beach or mountains, spending family time or doing favourite activities .

text: Children exclaim "bonne fête papa", while everyone wishes all fathers "bonne Fête des Pères". (Happy Father's Day)

text: Hong Kong[edit]

text: In Hong Kong, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.

text: Hungary[edit]

text: In Hungary, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.

text: India[edit]

text: Father's Day [[(Telugu: ఫాదర్స్ డే)], Tamil: Thanthaiyar Thinam, தந்தையர் தினம்]is not celebrated in all of India. But is observed the third Sunday of June by mostly westernized urban centers. The event is not a public holiday.  The day is usually celebrated only in bigger cities of India like Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kanpur, Bengaluru, Kolkata and others. After this day was first observed in the United States in 1908 and gradually gained popularity,[52] Indian metropolitan cities, much later, followed suit by recognising this event. In India, the day is usually celebrated with children giving gifts like greeting cards, electronic gadgets, shirts, coffee mugs or books to their fathers.

text: Indonesia[edit]

text: In Indonesia, Father's Day is celebrated on November 12 and is not a public holiday. Father's Day in Indonesia was first declared in 2006 in Solo City Hall attended by hundreds of people from various community groups, including people from community of inter-religion communication. Because of its recent declaration, there is not very much hype about the celebration, compared to the celebration of Mother's Day on December 22.

text: Ireland[edit]

text: In Ireland, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.

text: Israel[edit]

text: In Israel, Father's Day is usually celebrated on May 1 together with Workers' Day or Labour Day.[citation needed]

text: Italy[edit]

text: In Italy, according to the Roman Catholic tradition, Father's Day is celebrated on Saint Joseph's Day, commonly called Feast of Saint Joseph (Festa di San Giuseppe), March 19. It was a public holiday until 1977.

text: Japan[edit]

text: In Japan, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.

text: Kazakhstan[edit]

text: Kazakhstan continues the Soviet Union's tradition of celebrating Defender of the Fatherland Day instead of Father's Day like in Russia and other former soviet countries. It is usually called "Man's Day" and it is considered equivalent of Father's Day. It is still celebrated on February 23.

text: Kenya[edit]

text: In Kenya, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.

text: Korea[edit]

text: In South Korea, Parents' day is celebrated on May 8 and is not a public holiday.

text: Latvia[edit]

text: In Latvia, Father's Day (Tēvu diena) is celebrated on the second Sunday of September and is not a public holiday. In Latvia people did not always celebrate this day because of the USSR's influence with its own holidays. This day in Latvia was 'officially born' in 2008 when it was celebrated and marked in the calendar for the first time on September 14 (second September Sunday) to promote the idea that man as the father must be satisfied and proud of his family and children, also, the father is important to gratitude and loving words from his family for devoted to continuous altruistic concerns. Because this day is new to the country it does not have established unique traditions, but people borrow ideas from other country's Father's Day traditions to congratulate fathers in Latvia.

text: Lithuania[edit]

text: In Lithuania, Father's Day (Tėvo diena) is celebrated on the first Sunday of June and is a public holiday.

text: Macao[edit]

text: In Macau, Father's Day (Dia do Pai) is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.

text: Malaysia[edit]

text: In Malaysia, Father's Day falls on the third Sunday of June.

text: Malta[edit]

text:
Malta has followed the international trend and celebrates Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June.
As in the case of Mother’s Day, the introduction of Father’s Day celebrations in Malta was encouraged by Frans H Said (Uncle Frans of the children’s radio programmes).  The first mention of Father’s Day was in June 1977, [53] and the day is now part of the local events calendar. (The Times of Malta 11 June 2017)  ( Il-Mument - Maltese newspaper- 18 June 2017)

text: Mexico[edit]

text: In Mexico, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday.

text: Mongolia[edit]

text: The Mongolian Men's Association began the celebration of Father's Day on 8 of August since 2005.

text: Nepal[edit]

text: The Newar population (natives of Kathmandu valley) in Nepal honors fathers on the day of kusa aunsi, which occurs in late August or early September, depending on the year, since it depends on the lunar calendar. The Western-inspired celebration of Father's Day that was imported into the country is always celebrated on the same day as Gokarna Aunsi.

text: The rest of the population has also begun to celebrate the Gokarna Aunsi day[54] It is commonly known as Abu ya Khwa Swoyegu in Nepal Bhasa or Buwaako mukh herne din (बुवाको मुख हेर्ने दिन)  in Nepali (literally "day for looking at father's face").[43][55] On the new moon day (Amavasya) it is traditional to pay respect to one's deceased father; Hindus go to the Shiva temple of Gokarneswor Mahadev, in Gokarna, a suburb of Kathmandu[56] while Buddhists go to Jan Bahal (Seto Machhendranath or white Tara) temple in Kathmandu.

text: Traditionally, in the Kathmandu Valley, the south-western corner is reserved for women and women-related rituals, and the north-eastern is for men and men-related rituals. The worship place for Mata Tirtha Aunsi ("Mother Pilgrimage New Moon") is located in Mata Tirtha in the south-western half of the valley, while the worship place for Gokarna Aunsi is located in the north-eastern half. This division is reflected in many aspects of the life in the Kathmandu Valley.[57]

text: Netherlands[edit]

text: In the Netherlands, Father's Day (Vaderdag) is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday. Traditionally, as on Mother's Day, fathers get breakfast in bed made by their children and families gather together and have dinner, usually at the grandparents' house. In recent years, families also started having dinner out, and as on Mother's Day, it is one of the busiest days for restaurants. At school, children handcraft their present for their fathers. Consumer goods companies have all sorts of special offers for fathers: socks, ties, electronics, suits, and men's healthcare products.

text: New Zealand[edit]

text: This section  possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (November 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: In New Zealand, Father's Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of September and it is not a public holiday. Fathers' Day seems to have been first observed at St Matthew's Church, Auckland on 14 July 1929[58] and first appeared in commercial advertising the following year.[59] By 1931 other churches had adopted the day. In 1935 much of Australia moved to mark the day at the beginning of September[60] and New Zealand followed, with a Wellington advert in 1937,[61] a Christchurch Salvation Army service in 1938[62] and in Auckland from 1939.[63]

text: Norway[edit]

text: In Norway, Father's day (Farsdag), is celebrated on the second Sunday of November. It is not a public holiday.

text: Pakistan[edit]

text: Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. The Rutgers WPF launched a campaign titled 'Greening Pakistan – Promoting Responsible Fatherhood' on Father's Day (Sunday June 18, 2017) across Pakistan to promote active fatherhood and responsibility for the care and upbringing of children.[64][65] Father's Day is not a public holiday in Pakistan.

text: Peru[edit]

text: In Peru, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday. People usually give a present to their fathers and spend time with him mostly during a family meal.

text: Philippines[edit]

text: In the Philippines, Father's Day is officially celebrated every first Monday of December, but it is not a public holiday.[66] It is more widely observed by the public on the 3rd Sunday of June perhaps due to American influence.

text: Poland[edit]

text: In Poland, Father's Day (in Polish: Dzień Ojca) is celebrated on June 23 and is not a public holiday.

text: Portugal[edit]

text: Father's Day ("Dia do Pai") is celebrated on March 19 (see Roman Catholic tradition below) in Portugal. Father's Day is not a bank holiday.

text: Roman Catholic tradition[edit]

text: In the Roman Catholic tradition, Fathers are celebrated on Saint Joseph's Day, commonly called the Feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, though in certain countries Father's Day has become a secular celebration.[67] It is also common for Catholics to honor their "spiritual father," their parish priest, on Father's Day.[68]

text: Romania[edit]

text:
The Law instituting the Father's day celebration in Romania passed on September 29th, 2009 and stated that Father's day will be celebrated annually on the second Sunday of May. First time it was celebrated on May 9th 2010. This year it was celebrated on 13 May 2018. The next dates this celebration will take place are: 12 May 2019, 10 May 2020, 9 May 2021, 8 May 2022, 14 May 2023, 12 May 2024 and 11 May 2025.
[27].

text: Russia[edit]

text: Russia continues the Soviet Union's tradition of celebrating Defender of the Fatherland Day instead of Father's Day. It is usually called "Man's Day" and it is considered the Russian equivalent of Father's Day.[24]

text: American Samoa and Samoa[edit]

text: In Samoa, Father's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in August, and is a recognised national holiday on the Monday following.

text: Seychelles[edit]

text: In Seychelles, Father's Day is celebrated on June 16 and is not a public holiday.[69]

text: Singapore[edit]

text: In Singapore, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June but is not a public holiday.

text: Slovakia[edit]

text: In Slovakia, Father's Day (In slovak: deň otcov) is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. It is not a public holiday

text: South Africa[edit]

text: In South Africa, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. It is not a public holiday.

text: South Sudan[edit]

text: In South Sudan, Father's Day is celebrated on the last Monday of August. President Salva Kiir Mayardit proclaimed it before August 27, 2012. First celebrated on August 27, 2012, Father's Day was not celebrated in South Sudan in 2011 (due to the country's independence).

text: Spain[edit]

text: Father's Day, El Día del Padre, is observed on the feast day of Saint Joseph, which is March 19.[70] It is celebrated as a public holiday in some regions of Spain.[71]

text: Sri Lanka[edit]

text: Father's Day (In sinhala : Piyawarunge dhinaya, පියවරුන්ගේ දිනය & in Tamil: Thanthaiyar Thinam, தந்தையர் தினம்), is observed on the third Sunday of June. It is not a public holiday. Many schools hold special events to honor fathers.

text: Sudan[edit]

text: In Sudan, Father's Day (عيد الأب), is celebrated on the twenty-first of June.

text: Sweden[edit]

text: In Sweden, Father's day (Fars dag), is celebrated on the second Sunday of November, but is not a public holiday.

text: Taiwan[edit]

text: In Taiwan, Father's Day is not an official holiday, but is widely observed on August 8, the eighth day of the eighth month of the year. In Mandarin Chinese, the pronunciation of the number eight is bā, and the pronunciation is very similar to the character "爸" "bà", which means "Pa" or "dad".  The eighth day of the eighth month (bā-bā) is a pun for dad (爸爸 or "bàba").  The Taiwanese, therefore, sometimes refer to August 8 as "Bābā Holiday" as a pun for "Dad's Holiday" (爸爸節) or the more formal "Father's Day" (父親節).

text: Thailand[edit]

text: In Thailand, the birthday of the king, is set as Father's Day.[42] December 5 is the birthday of the late king Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX). Traditionally, Thais celebrate by giving their father or grandfather a canna flower (ดอกพุทธรักษา Dok Buddha Ruksa), which is considered a masculine flower; however, this is not as commonly practiced today. Thai people will wear yellow on this day to show respect for the late king, because yellow is the color of the day for Monday, the day King Bhumibol Adulyadej was born. Thais flood the Sanam Luang, a massive park in front of the palace, to watch the king give his annual speech, and often stay until the evening, when there is a national ceremony. Thais will light candles and show respect to the king by declaring their faith. This ceremony happens in almost every village in Thailand, and even overseas at Thai organizations.

text: It first gained nationwide popularity in the 1980s as part of a campaign by Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda to promote Thailand's royal family.[42] Mother's Day is celebrated on the birthday of Queen Sirikit,[42] August 12.

text: Trinidad and Tobago[edit]

text: In Trinidad and Tobago, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday in June and is not a public holiday.

text: Turkey[edit]

text: In Turkey, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday in June and is not a public holiday.

text: United Arab Emirates[edit]

text: In United Arab Emirates, Father's Day is celebrated on June 21, generally coinciding with midsummer's day.

text: United Kingdom[edit]

text: In the United Kingdom Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June.[38] The day does not have a long tradition; The English Year (2006) states that it entered British popular culture "sometime after the Second World War, not without opposition".[72]

text: United States of America[edit]

text:
In the US, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June.[73] Typically, families gather to celebrate the father figures in their lives.
In recent years, retailers have adapted to the holiday by promoting greeting cards and gifts such as electronics and tools. Schools (if in session) and other children's programs commonly have activities to make Father's Day gifts. The U.S. Open golf tournament is scheduled to finish on Father's Day, as was the 2016 NBA Finals.

text: Ukraine[edit]

text: In Ukraine, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June.

text: Venezuela[edit]

text: In Venezuela, Father's Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June and is not a public holiday. Traditionally, as on Mother's Day, families gather together and have lunch, usually at the grandparents' house. In recent years, families also started having lunch out, and as on Mother's Day, it is one of the busiest days for restaurants. At school, children handcraft their present for their fathers. Consumer goods companies have all sorts of special offers for fathers: electronics, suits, and men's healthcare products.