We all have celebrated Valentine’s Day with a loved one or with friends and family. When we think of valentine’s day we never think about why we have it, so here is why:

Valentine’s Day is celebrated on February 14, when lovers express their affection with greetings and gifts. The holiday has origins in the Roman festival of Lupercalia, held in mid-February. The festival, which celebrated the coming of spring, included fertility rites and the pairing off of women with men by lottery.

At the end of the 5th century, Pope Gelasius the first, the bishop of Rome forbids the celebration of Lupercalia and is sometimes attributed with replacing it with St. Valentine’s Day, but the true origin of the holiday is vague at best. Valentine’s Day did not come to be celebrated as a day of romance until about the 14th century.

According to legend, the priest martyrs named Valentine signed a letter “from your Valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and, by some accounts, healed from blindness. Other accounts hold that it was St. Valentine of Terni, a bishop, for whom the holiday was named, though it is possible the two saints were actually one person. Another common legend states that St. Valentine defied the emperor’s orders and secretly married couples to spare the husbands from war. It is for this reason that his feast day is associated with love.

Valentines commonly depict Cupid, the Roman god of love, along with hearts, traditionally the seat of emotion. Because it was thought that the avian mating season begins in mid-February, birds also became a symbol of the day.

After many centuries, and many tweaks on the holiday- we have the Valentine’s Day we know and love.

Credits to the following:

–Valentine’s Day | Definition, History, & Traditions | Britannica