The month of February has been known to be the month of romance because February 14 is Valentine’s day-The day of love.

Most guys and girls bring each other chocolate and flowers and are so romantic just for one day that is labeled the Day Of Love.  But they way Valentine’s day was created… Well, that was not romantic in any way, shape, or form.

Dating back to the Romans, they started Valentine’s Day by hitting on women–literally.  They hit women as a sign of attraction.

Men sacrificed goats and a dog in celebration of Lupercalia, and whipped the women with the hide of the animals.  They celebrated Lupercalia February 13 to the 15.  The men would have the women line up in a line for the men to hit them.  They believed it would make them fertile if the men hit them.

Young men would draw a name of a woman from a jar and they would be set up on a date for the night, and it would either be just for the night or it would last a lifetime, depending on the match up.  The ancient Romans named this holiday Valentine’s day because Emperor Claudius II executed two men both named Valentine on February 14 in two different years of the 3rd century.

As time went on, the holiday grew to be sweeter instead of violent.

Years after the death of Christ, the Roman Emperors still wanted everyone to believe in the Roman gods.  A Christian priest named Valentine was thrown in prison for teaching his beliefs, and on February 14, he was beheaded.  But he also was remembered for one great thing–he cured a jailers daughters’ blindness.  No one knows how, but he did.

There was another man named Valentine who was an Italian Bishop, and he was imprisoned for secretly marrying couples, disobeying the Roman laws.

So, as you can see, many people in the ancient times went through some not-so-romantic ways,  but because of all of that, we now have Valentine’s day each and every year.