Valentine's Day Trivia, Facts, and Fun
About Valentine's Day Trivia
Amaze your lover or potential lover with your knowledge of love and Valentine’s Day. Certainly, you will impress your Valentine with the trivial and interesting facts below. Armed with these tidbits, it just might be all you need “get lucky”!
Valentine's Day Trivia and FAQs
On Valentine’s Day, 2009, 39,897 couples, friends, and families got together in Mexico City and kissed for 10 seconds. It’s the world record for the most simultaneous kisses.
110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period.
While in prison for performing Christian marriages, St. Valentine befriended Julia, the daughter of the jailer. When the emperor Claudius discovered that he was still preaching Christianity from his jail cell, he was executed (270 A.D.). In his last letter to the jailer’s daughter before his execution, he signed it “From your Valentine”, which is where the holiday got its name.
During the Roman Festival of Lupercalia in the 15th century, young men held a lottery to decide which girl would be theirs.
In the 17th century, even married people would take a Valentine…. sometimes it wasn’t their mate!
California produces 60 percent of American roses. However, the U.S. imports the vast majority of Valentine’s Day roses mostly from South America.
Men buy 73% of Valentine’s Day flowers. WOmen purchase only 27 percent.
15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day.
Worldwide, people exchange over 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards each year. That’s the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas.
In Victorian times, it was considered bad luck to sign a Valentine’s Day card.
One-third of all Valentine’s cards come with gifts.
About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets.
Approximately 25 percent of Valentine’s Day cards are humorous.
By the numbers: 70 percent of those celebrating the holiday give a card, followed by a telephone call (49 percent), gift (48 percent), special dinner (37 percent), candy (33 percent) restaurant meal (30 percent), and flowers (19 percent).
Valentine's Day Trivia - For the Love of Love
In the United States, 64 percent of men do not make plans in advance for a romantic Valentine’s Day with their sweethearts.
Teachers will receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, and then, sweethearts…… I sure hope my sweetheart only gets one.
The oldest love poem was written on a clay tablet It dates back to ancient Sumeria, around 3500 B.C.
In 1866, candy manufacturer NECCO made the first “Conversation Hearts”, originally called “Motto Hearts”. Eight billion of these little candies are sold between New Years’ day and February 14.
More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are sold for Valentine’s Day.
The Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare’s lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine’s Day.
Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone, on Valentine’s Day, 1876.
Cupid is associated with Valentine’s Day because he was the son of Venus, the Roman god of love and beauty.
Cupid appears holding a bow and arrow. He uses magical arrows to inspire feelings of love.
In the early 1900s, Ozark hill people in the eastern United States thought that birds and rabbits started mating on February 14th.
In 1929 in Chicago, gunmen employed by organized crime boss Al Capone murdered seven members of the rival George “Bugs” Moran North Spiders gang in a garage on North Clark Street. It became known as the “Valentine’s Day Massacre”.
Valentine's Day Facts - To Make Him or Her Swoon
In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their Valentine would be. They wore the name on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.
England’s King Henry VIII first declared February 14th a holiday, in 1537.
Hawaiian natives murdered Captain James Cook, the great English explorer, and navigator, on February 14, 1779.
In the 17th century, hopeful maidens ate a hard-boiled egg and pinned five bay leaves to her pillow before going to sleep on Valentine’s eve. It was believed this would make her dream of her future husband.
On February 14, 1849, Matthew Brady took the first photograph of a sitting U.S. President in New York City. Which President? …. President James Polk.
The first televised tour of the White House aired on February 14 in 1962, hosted by then-First Lady Jackie Kennedy.
The heart is the most common symbol of romantic love. Ancient cultures believed the human soul lived in the heart.
In England, the Romans, who had taken over the country, introduced a pagan fertility festival held every February 14. Nearly a century later in 496 A.D., the pagan ritual was abolished by Pope Gelsius, who established St. Valentine’s Day as a celebration of love.
Today's Quote
“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.” – – Buddha
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