--: Facts, Figures & Folklore about Valentine’s Day :--

Did you know that Valentine’s Day was first declared an official holiday by King Henry VIII of England in 1537?

Did you know that in Colombia, Valentines Day is celebrated in September?

And Brazil, Valentine’s Day, otherwise known as the Day of the Enamored, is on June 12. In Israel, Tu B’Av is the holiday of love, celebrated in late summer.

The Story of Valentine's Day

February 14th is Valentines Day – a worldwide celebration of love and romance, marked by giving red roses and chocolate hearts or by sending valentines. Join us as we present a new? Did You Know?? Fun fact each day as we countdown to Valentine’s Day, the day of love!

February 14th is Valentines Day - a worldwide celebration of love and romance, marked by giving red roses and chocolate hearts or by sending valentines.

Often derided as a "Hallmark holiday," Valentines Day - also known as Saint Valentines Day - is certainly a boom for greeting card companies, florists and chocolatiers. But long before the mass marketing, Valentines Day was still a high point for courtly love.

So, how and where did the holiday get its start? And who is Saint Valentine and why has he become the symbol for love?

For starters, Saint Valentine is probably not just one man, but rather any of a number of martyred saints named Valentine or Valentinus, derived from the Latin word for valor. According to Christian tradition, all of these Saint Valentines are believed to have been martyred on February 14.

The first Valentinus, Valentine of Rome, was a priest and doctor, who treated even those patients who could not afford to pay him. The second Saint Valentine was beheaded for protecting Christians from the Romans. And the third is Valentine of Terni, a bishop believed killed during the persecution of Emperor Aurelian.

While these saints likely bestowed upon Valentines Day its name, they still do not explain the holiday's love connection. To understand that, one has to go back even further in history - to the Romans.

Historians believe that the holiday of love derives its origins from the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalia. On February 15, the Romans celebrated the Feast of Lupercus, to honor and thank the wolf god who watched over the Roman shepherds and their flocks.

While Lupercus doesn't seem to have much to do with romance, there was a number of fertility customs associated with his feast. In one of these rituals, women would put their names on slips of paper in a box, to be drawn out by men. The two would then be coupled up for the duration of the festival - or for the rest of the year in some cases. This fertility-friendly feast gives some clue as to the romantic - or at least procreative - nature of the holiday. But we don't celebrate Saint Lupercus Day on February 14th. So, how did the Valentine saints become associated with the Roman god?

Legend has it that in the 3rd century, the Roman emperor Claudius II banned marriages to prevent draft dodgers. Only single men had to go into the army - and too many young men were getting married.

A Christian priest named Valentinus of Rome ignored the ban, continuing to officiate marriages in secret. Valentinus was caught and sentenced to death - an order carried out on February 14. Another story tells of a priest named Valentinus who was jailed and later executed for helping Christians. He fell for his jailer's daughter and sent her plaintiff love notes signed "from your Valentine".

In the late 5th century, Emperor Gelasius declared February 14th a holy day in honor of Valentinus (probably the first, but perhaps the second), allowing Christianity to adopt some of the love day customs previously associated with paganism.

The traditions were reworked, however, to honor the Christian martyrs. For example, instead of boys pulling girls' names from boxes, both boys and girls chose names of martyred saints to emulate for the year.

It took nearly nine centuries, until the advent of the Renaissance, for Valentines Day to return to its earlier love-based roots. With Romantic art, poetry and music flourishing, the time was ripe for a celebration of love.

Chocolate: What is the Love Connection?

Chocolate. Dark, white, milk. Pralines, truffles or nugget. No matter what its form, its creamy dark goodness is virtually synonymous with Valentine's Day

. Packaged up in that shiny red, heart-shaped box, it all but screams, "I love you."

Come February, chocolate sales boom. But when did chocolate become the penultimate Valentine's Day gift

? And how did cocoa beans grow into the symbol of love?

The cocoa connection dates back to ancient history. In fact, chocolate has been around almost as long as man. In 1500 BC, the Olmec Indians grew the first cocoa beans as a domestic crop. At the beginning of the Common Era, Mayan elders began enjoying a drink made from ground cocoa beans - a tradition that continued among society elite well into the 18th century.

During the Middle Ages, Spaniards added cane sugar and other flavorings to sweeten their cocoa drinks. And then in the late 1600s, chocolate emporiums opened across Europe, serving up the first solid versions - baking cocoa in cakes and eventually mixing it into candies as well.

All the while, chocolate was gaining popularity not only for its decadence, but also for its reputed aphrodisiac properties. Today, we know that chocolate contains phenylethylamine, a naturally occurring amino-acid - the same one that we humans release when we are falling in love. Chocolate also contains tryptophan, a building block of serotonin, which is one of the brain chemicals involved in sexual arousal. No wonder eating chocolate feels so good. And with researchers now touting the heart-healthy benefits of eating dark chocolate, what's not to love?

But even before modern science, chocolate enthusiasts have been clued in to the good feelings that come from eating (or imbibing) cocoa beans. The Aztec emperor Montezuma was said to have drank copious amounts of the ground beans to increase his sexual prowess. And during Mesoamerican marriage ceremonies, the couple is said to have shared a ritual cup of cocoa, believing that it would increase their luck in love.

It should be no surprise, then, that chocolate has become - or rather, remained - an edible symbol of love. Nor is it too surprising that chocolate makers have capitalized on this natural association.

The first to seize the opportunity was Richard Cardbury - the famous British chocolatier - who, in the 1860s, designed and sold the first heart-shaped box of chocolate candy. Just in time for Valentine's Day. Four decades later, the American chocolate maker Whitman upped the heart-shaped box ante with a brilliant improvement: a map inside the lid describing the filling in each piece.

The introduction of that first Cadbury heart-shaped box has catapulted a 150-year tradition of sharing chocolate with your sweetheart on Valentine's Day. With more than 35 million boxes of chocolate are sold each year, simple chocolate goodness has become the ultimate gift of love.

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