Valentine's Day  Happy Valentine's Day(2008)
From 101lifeStyle.com Saint Valentine's Day or Valentine's Day on February 14 is a traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other; sending Valentine's cards, donating to charity or gifting candy, presenting flowers. The holiday is named after two men, both Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. Valentines Day denotes mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines", and exchange of modern day love symbols including the heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, Valentine’s Day Greeting Cards have become very popular. Valentine’s Day History: Until 1969, the Catholic Church formally recognized eleven Valentine's Days. The Valentines honored on February 14 are. 1.Valentine of Rome: A priest in Rome who suffered martyrdom about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. His relics are at the Church of Saint Praxed in Rome. and at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland.
2.Valentine of Terni: He became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been killed during the persecution of Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome. His relics are at the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni.
3.St Valentine:The Catholic Encyclopedia also speaks of a third saint named Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies under date of 14 February. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him.  The Story Of St. Valentine:
The Early Medieval acta of either Saint Valentine were excerpted by Bede and briefly expounded in Legenda Aurea, According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.
The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men that was against the rule which said that young men were to join the army and therefore had to remain single. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail. In an embellishment to The Golden Legend, on the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he wrote the first "valentine" himself, addressed to a young girl variously identified as his beloved, as the jailer's daughter whom he had befriended and healed, or both. It was a note that read "From your Valentine."  History Of St Valentines Day:
The February Festivals of Fertility and love might be related to St Valentine's Day, since there is some correspondence between the time when they were celebrated.The festival of Juno Februa was celebrated on February 14th. On the ancient Athenian calendar, the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera. In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia was a festival local to the city, and celebrated on the 15th of February. However, Pope Gelasius I (492-496) abolished Lupercalia and declared in 496 that the feast of St. Valentine would be on February 14. Valentines Day: The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer.  The reinvention of Saint Valentine's Day in the 1840s has been traced by Leigh Eric Schmidt. In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store, and she took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received. Since 2001, the Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual "Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary." In the second half of the twentieth century, the practice of exchanging cards was extended to all manner of gifts in the United States, usually from a man to a woman. Such gifts typically include roses and chocolates. In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine's Day as an occasion for giving jewelry. The day has come to be associated with a generic platonic greeting of "Happy Valentine's Day."  | 
