The DC Traveler

Here are some interesting facts about Saint Valentine’s Day…

• The day is actually named for one of three martyrs killed for their faith - a priest in Italy, a bishop in Rome or a man in Northern Africa, or perhaps all of them.
• The name Valentine is from the Latin word valens, to mean “being or acting strong”.
• Legend has it that St. Valentine was first associated with love and romance by the auhtor of The Canterbary Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, in the late-1300s. He worote about it in Parlement of Foules.
• The Greeting Card Association estimates that one billion valentine cards or greetings are sent each year, that’s almost one for every six people on earth.
• The first record in the U.S. of a mass-produced valentine cards (1847) were made of lace covered paper.
• A recent humorous spin off holiday is Singles Awareness Day or “SAD”, for all the Valentine-less people in the U.S. The common and polite greeting is…yes….”Happy SAD.”

V-Day is not just for lovers. Other notable events that occurred on Valentine’s Day throughout histoy:

• 1803 - Chief Supreme Court Justice John Marshall declared that any act of Congress that conflicts with the U.S. Constitution is void.
• 1849 – President James Polk becomes the first U.S. President to have his photo taken.
• 1876 – Both Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray apply for a patent for the telephone on the same day - February 14th.
• 1918 – The first Tarzan movie, Tarzan of the Apes, is released.
• 1924 – IBM, or International Business Machines Corp. was founded.
• 2003 - code-named “6LL3″, the first cloned sheep, died on Velentine’s Day at the age of six. We knew her as “Dolly”.
• And finally, growing up in Chicago, Valentine’s Day was remembered for one other event, the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. In 1929, in a garage on North Clark Street in Chicago, a group of gunmen hired by Al “Scarface” Capone, and dressed as police, massacred 6 members of the George “Bugs” Moran gang, plus an innocent mechanic. My uncle lived just a couple blocks from the garage and after hearing the police sirens, ran to the spot and saw the aftermath.

Famous V-Day births
Comic Jack Benny, football coach Woody Hayes, Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, gameshow host Hugh Downs, actor Victor Mature, actress Florence Hendreson (Carol Brady), tap dancer and actor Gregory Heines.
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