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A Valentine's Sacrifice

According to the Greeting Card Association an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentines Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year. Many holidays, so many histories, how did you think Valentines Day came about? Possibly a holiday created by the greeting card industry to bring in more money between Christmas and Easter? Well if you think that, you would be wrong. The original name for Valentines Day is St. Valentine's Day. St. Valentine, not a very mentioned man, was a saint during the third century in Rome. During the rule of the emperor Claudius II, St. Valentine married many young couples who had fallen in love. You'd think the emperor would be happy that people were marrying, but he wasn't. Claudius had decided that single men made the best soldiers in his army during the time of ongoing take overs of many different lands. So like any land-greedy emperor he did things to his advantage. He outlawed the marriage of young couples. St. Valentine thought this law as unjust and married many young couples in secret. So when Claudius II discovered this treason, he ordered that St. Valentine to be put to death. Why do we celebrate Valentine's Day in February, well we're not sure. Some people say that it is to commemorate St. Valentine's death, which probably occurred around 270 AD. Others claim it was a day sanctified by the church to "christianize" the people celebrating the Lupercalia festival at this time. You can believe whatever you want. This holiday may have been started in the third century but it wasn't celebrated in other countries until much later. Britain didn't start celebrating until the seventeenth century and they didn't start giving gifts until the eighteenth century, that is when the introduction of the greeting card occurred. In America it took until the eighteenth century to create hand-made greeting cards until 1840, when Esther A. Howland invented the printed greeting card in America. Today Valentines Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, The United States, The United Kingdom, France, and Australia. Just as a fun fact, eighty-five percent of valentines are sent by woman, think about that one.