Valentine's Gift
Valentine’s Gift

People all around the world celebrates Valentine’s Day that falls on February 14 every year with their significant other. It is a day where you show your love and appreciation for the ones you love, and it does not have to be your partner. The tradition has come along for hundreds of years and is probably one of the events that people look forward to. Below are 7 fun facts that you probably have not known about Valentine’s Day.

Origin to Pagan Celebration

Some people state that Valentine’s Day is an attempt from the Christians to replace a bloody pagan festival that commemorate fertility dating back to the 6th century B.C. The festival is called the Lupercalia, and Roman priests make dogs and goats as sacrifices which then the blood-covered skins are used to hit women on the streets.

 

Chocolate Tradition

Chocolate
Chocolate

The practice of giving chocolates started in the 19th century. Richard Cadbury started this tradition while looking for a way to make use of the cocoa butter. Before, only the elites and the rich people can enjoy chocolates, but Cadbury found a way to produce chocolates that are not expensive which make every other people able to enjoy chocolate without having to rip off their wallet.

 

The Greek God – Cupid

Cupid statues
Cupid statues

We all know that Valentine’s Day usually are associated with a cute baby with wings and bows who is widely known as Cupid. Before being called Cupid, he was known as Eros, the ancient Greek god of love. Eros uses two sets of arrows dedicated for love and hate respectively to mess around with people’s emotions.

 

The Story of Saint Valentine

Not all of us know who the founder of Valentine’s Day is. His name is Saint Valentine, and he was one of the people who stood up against Emperor Claudius II’s ideology. During that time, Claudius banned marriages to prevent soldiers from getting distracted. Saint Valentine thinks in a different way, he would hold illegal marriages of young couple until he was caught one day. He then got executed on 14th February. Since then, young couples would give cards and flowers to his cell.

 

Celebrated in Different Ways

Chocolate Box
Chocolate Box

In countries of Latin America, Valentine’s Day is more known as the day of lovers or the day of love and friendships. Though it is popular to be the day where couples exchange gifts like chocolates and bouquets, the special day is also a day to commemorate love for their friends.

However, in Japan, it is a tradition that only the ladies give presents to the men like chocolates to show their love. Furthermore, the next month on the same date is known as ‘White Day’ where the men would reply their feelings with a gift.

Uniquely, there is also a day called ‘Black Day’ in Korea which falls the following month, on 14th April. During this day, people with no partner would go out and eat black food while wearing all black outfit.

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