7 Fun Facts About Valentine’s Day

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner the shelves of the stores are filled with heart-shaped boxes of chocolate candy, cards filled with love notes, and all the roses you can imagine. Besides being deemed the holiday for lovers, do you know how the holiday came to be?  We put together these 7 fun facts about Valentine’s Day that you may not know.

7 Fun Facts About Valentine’s Day

• It is said that the origin of Valentine’s Day comes from when the Roman Emperor Claudius II refused to allow his soldiers to marry during wartime. He believed they would not focus on the battle if they had loved ones to worry about. Bishop Valentine went against his wishes and performed secret weddings. Valentine was caught, jailed and executed. While in jail he wrote a letter to his love and signed it “from your Valentine”.

• England’s King Henry VII officially declared Feb. 14 the holiday of St. Valentine’s Day in 1537.

• It was considered bad luck to sign a Valentine’s Day card in the Victorian times.

I remember during my elementary school years we never signed our Valentine’s Day cards! Maybe this is also where the ‘secret admirer‘ tradition came into play.

• It is believed that the X symbol became the sign of a kiss in medieval times. People who couldn’t write their names signed in front of a witness with an X. The X was then kissed to show their sincerity.

I love signing my cards with Xs and Os. Do you write xoxo at the bottom of your love letters?

• Females during the medieval times ate bizarre foods on St. Valentine’s Day to make them dream of their future spouse.

What is the most bizarre thing you have ever eaten?  I must say I believe if you eat chocolate at night it gives you nightmares. I was told that as a child and I can attest that it has happened to me.

• Physicians in the 1800s commonly advised their patients to eat chocolate to calm their pining for lost love.

So this explains why women eat pints of ice cream and chocolate candy after a breakup.

• Richard Cadbury produced the first box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day in the late 1800s.

Bonus Fun Fact:

In the Middle Ages, single men and women drew names from a pot to see who would be their Valentine. They would wear the drawn name pinned onto their sleeves for one week for everyone to see. Thus the origin of the expression “to wear your heart on your sleeve” was born!

Which of these 8 fun facts about Valentine’s Day was your favorite? Did you already know some of them?