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* About 1 billion Valentine's
Day cards are exchanged in US each year. That's
the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of
the year, next to Christmas.
* Women purchase 85% of all
valentines.
* In order of popularity, Valentine's
Day cards are given to teachers, children, mothers,
wives, sweethearts and pets.
* Parents receive 1 out of every
5 valentines.
* About 3% of pet owners will
give Valentine's Day gifts to their pets.
* Valentine's Day and Mother's
Day are the biggest holidays for giving flowers.
* Worldwide, over 50 million
roses are given for Valentine's Day each year.
* 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 or Bulgaria.
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,
* Men buy most of the millions
of boxes of candy and bouquets of flowers given
on Valentine's Day.
* In the Middle Ages, young
men and women drew names from a bowl to see
who their valentines would be. They would wear
these names on their sleeves for one week. To
wear your heart on your sleeve now means that
it is easy for other people to know how you
are feeling.
* The Italian city of Verona,
where Shakespeare's lovers Romeo and Juliet
lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed
to Juliet every Valentine's Day.
* Richard Cadbury invented the
first Valentines Day candy box in the late 1800s.
* Alexander Graham Bell applied
for his patent on the telephone, an "Improvement
in Telegraphy", on Valentine's Day, 1876.
* The oldest surviving love
poem till date is written in a clay tablet from
the times of the Sumerians, inventors of writing,
around 3500 B.C
* Amongst the earliest Valentine's
Day gifts were candies. The most common were
chocolates in heart shaped boxes.
* In some countries, a young
woman may receive a gift of clothing from a
prospective suitor. If the gift is kept, then
it means she has accepted his proposal of marriage.
* If an individual thinks of
five or six names considered to be suitable
marriage partners and twists the stem of an
apple while the names are being recited, then
it is believed the eventual spouse will be the
one thought of when the stem comes off.
* In Medieval times, girls ate
unusual foods on St Valentine's Day to make
them dream of their future husband.
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