February 14th, 2008
Trivial Thoughts on the Red & Pink Holiday
It’s Valentine’s Day….a holiday celebrated on February the 14th in North America and Europe. The holiday is named after two early Christian martyrs named Valentine. In Ancient Rome, February 15th was a rite connected to fertility, without any overtones of romance. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. It wasn’t until 1537 that St. Valentine’s Day was declared an official holiday. England’s King Henry VIII declared February 14th a holiday.
Since trivia fascinates me, I thought I’d find some Valentine’s Trivia for you. By the way, I love conversation hearts. I love chocolate, of course, but conversation hearts just really float my vote. In fact, more than 8-billion conversation hearts are manufactured each year. I swear. I don’t eat but maybe 20% of ‘em 
Interested in more facts?
- Chocolate manufacturers currently use 40 percent of the world’s almonds and 20 percent of the world’s peanuts.
- The first American publisher of valentines was printer and artist Esther Howland. During the 1870s, her elaborate lace cards were purchased by the wealthy, as they cost a minimum of 5 dollars - some sold for as much as 35 dollars. Mass production eventually brought prices down, and the affordable “penny valentine” became popular with the lower classes.
- In Modern times, approximately One-Billion Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged industry-wide (not including packaged kids’ valentines for classroom exchanges), making Valentine’s Day the second-largest holiday for giving greeting cards (Christmas is first). Teachers will receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, and then, sweethearts. Children ages 6 to 10 exchange more than 650 million Valentine’s cards with teachers, classmates, and family members. In Victorian times it was considered bad luck to sign a Valentine’s Day card.
- California produces 60 percent of American roses, but the vast number sold on Valentine’s Day in the United States are imported, mostly from South America. Approximately 110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period. 73% of people who buy flowers for Valentine’s Day are men, while only 27 percent are women. 15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day. One single perfect red rose framed with baby’s breath is referred to by some florists as a “signature rose,” and is the preferred choice for many for giving on Valentine’s Day, anniversary, or birthday.
- Valentine’s Day is big business. Consumers will spend an average of $77.43 on Valentine’s Day gifts this year. E-commerce retailers expect to rack up about $650 million in sales of food, candy, flowers, and other Valentine’s Day gifts. Of that amount about $350 million will be for gifts and flowers and another $45 million will be spent on food (including chocolate) and wine.
- The most fantastic gift of love is the Taj Mahal in India. It was built by Mughal Emperor Shahjahan as a memorial to his wife, who died in childbirth. Work on the Taj began in 1634 and continued for almost 22 years. required the labor of 20,000 workers from all over India and Central Asia.
- The Kama Sutra is believed to be the oldest sex manual in existence. Generally considered the standard work on love in Sanskrit literature, the book is thought to have been written around 300 A.D.
- In 1929 in Chicago, gunmen in the suspected employment of organized-crime boss Al Capone murder seven members of the George “Bugs” Moran North Siders gang in a garage on North Clark Street. The so-called St. Valentine’s Day Massacre stirred a media storm centered on Capone and his illegal Prohibition-era activities and motivated federal authorities to redouble their efforts to find evidence incriminating enough to take him off the streets.
Gotta end on a REALLY interesting note 
