14 Valentine’s Day facts you didn’t know about St Valentine, Cupid and traditions

Unfortunately for many, Valentine’s Day cannot be avoided.

Supermarkets line the aisles with copious amounts of chocolate, sickly sweet cards and all the heart-shaped merchandise you could think of.

The day has become another corporate extravaganza, with couples outdoing themselves in lavish and often cringey gestures of love.

Here are some fun facts about Valentine’s Day you may not know:

Saint Valentine was a real person

Valentine’s Day is the celebration of the life of Saint Valentine, a Roman priest who was executed for continuing to marry Christian couples when Emperor Claudius Gothicus banned marriages in 460 AD.

The idea of sending love letters and cards to your spouse or partner is a nod to Saint Valentine, who wrote letters to Claudius’ daughter - signed “from your Valentine”.

Valentine’s Day was a Christian way to replace a pagan festival

According to History.com, Valentine’s Day may have been coined by Christians to replace an old pagan festival of fertility which dates as far back as 6th century BC.

During the festival of Lupercalia, priests would kill goats and dogs and use their blood-soaked hides to slap women on the streets, as a fertility blessing (how romantic).

Cupid was a mythical Roman God

Cupid, another symbol of love, is rooted in Greek mythology and did not become acquainted with Valentine’s Day until the 1800s.

According to myth, Cupid was the son of Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods, and Venus, the goddess of love.

He was the ancient Roman god of love in all its varieties - the equivalent of the Greek god Eros.

An imprisoned Duke was the first to send a love letter on Valentine’s Day

The first Valentine’s letter recorded was sent in 1415, by a French medieval duke, Charles of Orleans, to his wife.

He sent it while imprisoned in the Tower of London and it read: “I am already sick of love, My very gentle Valentine."

Valentine’s cards didn’t become tradition until 1849

The tradition of giving Valentine’s cards did not begin until the 1800s, when publisher Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts, published the first American Valentine’s card in 1849.

Hallmark began producing cards for 14 February in 1913, and mass production began in 1916.

The first Valentine’s chocolates were made by Cadbury

Cadbury was the first company to celebrate love with chocolate, selling heart-shaped boxes in 1861.

Nowadays over 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolates are sold each year, equating to over 26 million kilograms of chocolate.

Flowers were first sent as a non-verbal love message

The idea of sending flowers was created by King Charles II of Sweden, as a non-verbal way of sending a message.

Each flower meant something different and they were used to have a romantic conversation without words.

Flowers were first given as a symbol of fertility on 14 February in the 15th and 16th century, as love is associated with marriage and children.

Heart-shaped sweets started out as throat lozenges

You might think Swizzels' are the creators of heart-shaped sweets for Valentine’s Day, but the first heart sweets were created by a US pharmacist named Oliver Chase and were lozenges.