ALMOST EVERY CULTURE CELEBRATES A DAY FOR LOVERS LIKE VALENTINES

Valentine's Day is a holiday celebrated on February 14. It is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other; sending Valentines cards, or offering candy. Approximately one billion Valentines are sent each year worldwide and women purchase approximately 85 percent of them. Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine. There was Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni. In the ancient Athenian calendar, the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion and was dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.  In Ancient Rome, February 15 was Lupercalia, an archaic rite connected to fertility, without overtones of romance.

The earliest known link between Valentine's Day and romance is found in Chaucer. A "High Court of Love" was established in Paris on Valentine's Day in 1400. The court dealt with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading. Valentine's Day is mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in Hamlet. In American culture, Saint Valentine's Day was remade in the 1840s. Here also, the first mass-produced Valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Massachusetts.

There is the legend that many of us have heard about St. Valentine: According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Prior to his execution he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer. Before he died he wrote a note to her signing it: “Your Valentine.”

Valentine’s Day is celebrated in many countries (not always on the same day) around the globe and besides the U.S. and Canada, the U.K., Wales, France, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Slovenia, Romania, Turkey, Brazil, Columbia, South Korea, Japan, China and an "underground" day in Iran.