The history of Valentines Day is a vague story. A long time ago in Rome, a holiday much similar to Valentines Day was celebrated. But back then it wasn't called Valentines Day. It was called Lupercalia which means feast of Lupercus. The early Romans believed that a god named Lupercus protected the people from wolves and kept watch over their crops and animals. They honored him by singing, dancing, and eating. Since the holiday came later in the Roman calendar than our Valentines Day, it was also a festival to celebrate the start of spring.

The night before Lupercalia, girls would write their names on paper and place it in an urn. Boys would take turns drawing names out of the urn, and the name they drew was to be their partner for the festivities the next day. Often they would get married. This kind of reminds us of Valentines Day. For hundreds of years, the Romans celebrated Lupercalia. After the Christian religion came to Rome, a lot of the Romans no longer believed in gods like lupercus. Since people still liked to celebrate Lupercalia and didn't want to give up the holiday, the Church decided to use the holiday to honor a priest. They renamed the holiday St, Valentines Day and celebrated it on February 14. There are a couple of different stories of valentines day, because there were several of St. Valentines in the church records. Here are two of the stories:

The story goes that Valentines Day was named after a Christian priest who lived in Rome 2,000 years ago. He was arrested because he refused to pray to the Roman gods. In jail he became friends with the jail guard and his blind daughter. Finally, after many years, the priest was called before Claudius II (Claudius the Cruel). Claudius told him if he denied his Christianity then he would let him go. Valentine refused, and even tried to convince Claudius to become a Christian. Claudius became very angry with Valentine and ordered his head be taken off. Before he was to be executed Valentine asked the jail guard to give a note to his blind daughter. As soon as the girl opened the note, her eyesight was miraculously restored and she was able to read the note "From your Valentine."

Another story tells how Claudius the Cruel had forbidden young couples to get married because he thought young men made better soldiers. Valentine disobeyed the law by continuing to marry young couples in secret. When Claudius found out somehow, he was very angry and had Valentine put to his death. And so they named Valentines Day after him in honor of his courage. But it was also a day of romance. Valentines Day did not come to America until the mid 18th century. So now when people give valentines, they sign ‘From your Valentine.’

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