1. About 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged in the U.S. each year. That’s the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas.
    2. In order of popularity, Valentine’s Day cards are given to teachers, children, mothers, wives, sweethearts and pets.
    3. About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets.
    4. Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day are the biggest holidays for giving flowers.
    5. 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. Approximately 110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Richard Cadbury invented the first Valentines Day candy box in the late 1800s.
    9. Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent on the telephone, an “Improvement in Telegraphy”, on Valentine’s Day, 1876.
    10. Approximately 4 Million lovers expect to propose or be proposed to on Valentine’s Day.
    11. The most fantastic gift of love is the Taj Mahal in India. It was built by Mughal Emperor Shahjahan as a memorial to his wife.
    12. The oldest surviving love poem to date is written on a clay tablet from the times of the Sumerians around 3500 BC.
    13. The red rose was the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love.
    14. Cupid is a symbol of Valentine’s Day. Cupid was associated with Valentine’s Day because he was the son of Venus, the Roman god of love and beauty.