Valentine's Day origins

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Clay Murray
  • 75th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HILL AIR FORCE BASE -- Utah --  Every year there are memorable holidays that are celebrated in the United States, North America and some even across the entire globe.

The next major worldwide holiday is one that is in honor of love.

Held on Feb. 14, Valentine's Day's history is a blend of urban legend and culture.

The popular legend about St. Valentine teaches how the brave priest wed young couples, defying the emperor's wishes, according to the mythological encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Mythica. He was executed on Feb. 14 around the year 270. Pope Gelasius declared Feb. 14 a feast day in memory of the martyr more than 200 years later.

In ancient Rome, another holiday held around Valentine's Day was the Lupercalia; an enormous feast which was believed to be beneficial for health and fertility. After the meal, townfolk clad in goatskins would race around the town striking women with the sacrificed goatskins, according to Microsoft Encarta. The bloodied skins were considered to promote fertility, decrease chances of sterility and ease childbirth pains.

Another theory is the belief from medieval England and France that birds mated on Feb. 14. Images of birds that represented lovers found their place in poems handed off on Valentine's Day.

Exchanging of handwritten Valentine's notes began in America in the beginning of the 18th century. The U.S. Census Bureau Web site states that sometime in the 1840's standardized Valentine cards were first sold by Esther Howland.