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Valentine's Day - History, Customs & Legends
Read about St Valentine's Day, its origins, traditions, and customs around
the world - and who was St Valentine?
Saint Valentine
Saint Valentine or Saint Valentinus
refers to one of a number of martyred saints who lived in Ancient Rome. The
feast of Saint Valentine was formally celebrated on February 14 by the Roman
Catholic Church until 1969.....Read
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Who Was St. Valentine?
February 14th is the feast day for St. Valentine. Just who was this saint, and why is his day connected with love and romance? For the answers to these questions, one must go back in history to ancient Rome. The Romans celebrated a pagan festival called Lupercalia every year on February 15th. This celebration was in honor of Juno, the goddess of women and marriage. It also celebrated Pan, the god of nature.
Lupercalia was celebrated by all the young unmarried people. They would place.......Read More
St Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day, on February 14th, is the traditional day
on which lovers in the West let each other know about their love. Originally
an ancient Catholic Church feast day in honor of Saint Valentine, it probably
became associated with
romantic love in the
Middle Ages....Read
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History of Valentines Day
Valentines Day is arriving! Like every year you are planning to celebrate the day with your special person. Valentines Day is the day of romance when lovers exchange gifts, flowers and love messages among each other. But why do we celebrate the day as the day of romance? There are many stories associated with the day of Romance. But it is believed that the day is celebrated in the name of a saint called St. Valentine. The origin of the lovers' day dates back in fourth Century in the time of.......Read More
Valentine's Day History
The association of the middle of February with love and fertility dates to
ancient times. In the calendar of Ancient Athens, the period between mid
January and mid February was the month of Gamelion, which was dedicated to
the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera. In Ancient Rome, the day of February 15 was
Lupercalia, the festival of Lupercus, the god of fertility.....Read
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Valentine History Legends
Historically, there are reported to be two different men named Valentine who were martyred by the Roman emperor Claudius in the third century AD. An interesting legend exists about one of them who was a priest. He tried to serve and do good to the Christians, who were under persecution at the time from the emperor. One of the unreasonable demands Claudius made was that soldiers were not to get married.
Claudius felt that married soldiers were not as good at fighting as unmarried.......Read More
Valentines Day - A Guide for Lovers
"Will you be my valentine?" - that is the question men and women have asked each other for ages. But when and how did it all start? With all the excitement visiting the stores, looking for just the right gift for your partner, did you ever ask yourself what you were doing? Who first did this and why?
Jeez, who cares about boring old history? You broke with it when you got out of school. Isn't it much more fun just to go shop hunting?
Except it isn't all that boring at all, rather kind.......Read More
Valentine's Day Customs of the Past
Valentine's Day has long been a cheerful time for young people to celebrate romance and hopes of an eventual marriage. Particularly in Great Britain, the day was celebrated with gifts, songs, and candy. Special buns were baked which were filled with currants, plums, and caraway seeds. Unmarried girls were warned not to bring early spring bouquets of snowdrops into the house before the 14th of February. Doing so would jeopardize their chances of marriage that year, according to the old.......Read More
Valentine's Day Traditions
St. Valentine's Day is celebrated all across the world on February 14th as a day to commemorate the essence of love and happiness in our lives. Young and old couples, newly weds, and even singles participate in the celebrations every year. Traditionally couples on this day exchange their truest and deepest feelings of love and affection towards each other in various ways.
You also come across Valentine's Day marriages when couples decide to tie the knot on this special day to make their.......Read More
Valentine's Day Around the World
The Catholic Church teaches of at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all who were martyred.
One legend states that Valentine was a priest who served in Rome during the third century. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those who were married and with families, he made it illegal for young men to be married, as these were his crop of potential soldiers.
Valentine, seeing the injustice of the law, defied Claudius and.......Read More
Valentine's Day in Spain
In many countries, husbands and wives exchange gifts and tokens of admiration on St. Valentine's Day. Spain is no exception to that rule. However, the Spanish Valentine's Day gift-giving ritual has a unique wrinkle.
Wives are expected to give their husbands gifts on Valentine's Day. Men, however, are expected to give only flowers to their wives. American men, returning home from work with a box of chocolates, a dozen roses and jewelry for their beloved can certainly be jealous of the.......Read More
Gaekkebrev: A Valentine's Day Tradition
In Denmark, young men had an interesting Valentine's Day tradition. They would send letters to the young women in which they had an interest. These letters, often written with a sense of humor, are known as "gaekkebrve." In addition to kind sentiments and a clever poem, the letter would be signed in code.
Those young ladies able to decipher the code and to identify the sender would receive an Easter egg from the author later that.......Read More
The First Valentine
We tend to think of Valentine's Day cards as life-affirming, pleasant notes indicating our appreciation of one another. The first Valentine card was a little different! When Roman emperor Claudius ordered the execution of a disobedient priest, the clergyman (Valentine) somehow found an opportunity to send a written message to a loved one.
The small note was signed, "your Valentine." The priest was executed on February 14. Later, after his canonization our current holiday came into.......Read More
The History of Valentine Cards
Paper greetings with riddles or poems on them have been used in the celebration of Valentine's Day for hundreds of years. Legend has it that the original Saint Valentine was imprisoned for trying to convert people to Christianity from ancient Roman beliefs. While in prison, Valentine fell in love with the blind daughter of the jailer. Accounts vary about the original story, but some say his crime was marrying (he was a priest) soldiers when the emperor forbade them to marry. Either way,.......Read More
Vinegar Valentines Were a Hit
Ever hear of a Vinegar Valentine? Also referred to as "penny dreadfuls," these Valentine cards were among the first mass-produced Valentine's greetings to be met with a great consumer response. People loved the humorous Valentine's Day cards.
The Vinegar Valentines weren't filled with rosy sentiment and sappy poetry. As the name implies, they were a little more acidic than that! Filled with smarmy comments and playfully poking fun at the recipient, Vinegar Valentines became a popular.......Read More
Valentine's Day Cards
No one really knows how people first got around to giving gifts and cards on Valentine's Day. Some say it is connected with the ancient Roman festival in honor of their god Lupercus. During this festival Roman men used to draw names of teenage girls from a box and the girl who got picked was to remain his sexual partner for the period of the festival or in some cases for the rest of the year.
The church obviously didn't like such a pagan celebration. But they also realized they couldn't.......Read More
Valentine's Phone Calls are a Real Tradition
The idea of giving someone a ring on Valentine's Day to tell them you miss them or care for them is nothing new. Every year, phones across the country receive an influx of calls from loved ones. It's a convenient way to remind special people of just how much you care for them.
The Valentine's Day phone call, in a way, dates back to the very beginning of the telephone. Did you know that Alexander Graham Bell patented the his telephonic device in February 14, 1876? From the beginning,.......Read More
Valentine's Day Trivia
It was on Valentine's Day in 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell first applied for a patent on his invention, the telephone. He called it an "improvement is telegraphy," which it certainly was!
Most of the roses sold on Valentine's Day are imported from South America. Of American roses, three fifths of them are produced in the state of California. Most of the 110 million roses sold in the United States for Valentine's Day are red. An estimated 3% of women will get themselves roses.
.......Read More
A Few Great Romances from History
History is filled with stories of people - ordinary people who are remembered for their extraordinary deeds and thoughts. When one looks back over the years, several great romances from the past stand out as exemplary in purity and sacrificial love. Valentine's Day is a good time to remember these great lovers from the past.
The older generation used to say, "Behind every great man there is a great woman." This referred to mothers, of course, but it also referred to those supportive and.......Read More
What Was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre?
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, as it came to be called, happened in 1929 in the city of Chicago, Illinois. At the time, Al Capone was a notorious figure in the organized crime that was so rampant during the years of prohibition. The so-called massacre was an event in which some of Capone's gang gunned down seven of an opposing gang, led by George "Bugs" Moran.
The seven men were found in the garage of the S.M.C. Cartage Company in North Chicago. From the way they were laying,.......Read More
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