46 Fun Facts About Valentine's Day Trivia for Kids

In one famous legend, what did Saint Valentine do in secret against a Roman emperor's orders?

Performed weddings, the story goes: Emperor Claudius II is said to have banned marriages because he thought single men made better soldiers. It is legend, not recorded history.

Which winged Roman god, often shown with a bow and arrow, is a symbol of Valentine's Day?

Cupid carries two kinds of arrow in Roman myth: a golden one fills its target with love, while a blunt lead one makes the victim want nothing but to run away.

The Roman god of love is usually described as the son of which goddess?

Venus grew so jealous of a beautiful mortal named Psyche that she sent her son to make the girl fall for a monster; he fell in love with Psyche himself instead.

What did the ancient Greeks call their god of love, the model for the Roman one?

Eros started out as a handsome winged youth in early Greek art; the chubby child on today's Valentine cards only took over in later Greek times.

The chocolates in a Valentine's box start out as the beans of which plant?

Cacao beans were a drink long before they were a sweet: the Maya whipped them into a bitter, frothy brew, and the Aztecs spent the beans as money.

What do the little heart-shaped Sweethearts candies have printed on them?

Short messages such as Be Mine took over from long ones: the first printed candies of the 1860s were bigger, shaped like shells and horseshoes, and carried whole lines of wedding advice.

Roughly how many Sweethearts candies did the company Necco make every year?

About 8 billion a year was Necco's own count, nearly all sold in the six weeks before Valentine's Day; after the company shut in 2018, shops had no Sweethearts at all for Valentine's 2019.

Which chocolate company is credited with selling the first heart-shaped boxes of Valentine's chocolates?

Cadbury's Richard Cadbury ran sales for the family firm and saw the chance to tie chocolate to romance, selling it in decorated boxes and then heart-shaped ones for Valentine's Day.

The letters XOXO at the end of a note stand for what?

Hugs and kisses: each X is a kiss and each O a hug. One theory traces the X to the Middle Ages, when people who could not write signed with a cross, but nobody knows for certain.

Who first sold mass-produced Valentine cards in the United States, starting around 1847?

Esther Howland made them in Worcester, Massachusetts, from embossed paper lace, and the Greeting Card Association's award for greeting-card visionaries bears her name.

Valentine's Day is the second-biggest holiday for sending cards in the US, behind which one?

Christmas wins by a mile: Americans send well over a billion Christmas cards a year, against roughly 150 million valentines, not counting the packs children swap in class.

The French duke credited with the oldest surviving valentine spent years as a prisoner of war, including in which building?

The Tower of London held Charles, Duke of Orléans, after his capture at Agincourt in 1415. He stayed a prisoner for over twenty years; whether he wrote the poem there or back home in France is disputed.

Valentine's Day in Finland is not mainly about couples; what does its Finnish name, Ystävänpäivä, mean in English?

Friend's Day means just what it says: Finns send cards and small gifts to their best friends that day, not only to a sweetheart.

In Japan, the return-gift day a month after Valentine's Day grew out of a marshmallow promotion and is named after which colour?

White Day exists because in Japan it is women who give chocolate on Valentine's Day; the candy industry set March 14 as the men's turn to give something back.

Which English poet is credited with first linking Valentine's Day to romance, in a 1380s poem about a gathering of birds?

Geoffrey Chaucer set his Parliament of Fowls, a dream of squabbling birds, on Saint Valentine's Day; scholars have found no earlier writing that ties the day to romance.

Pairs of lovebirds, the small parrots that bond for life, often show affection by doing what?

Feeding each other is how they do it: one bird passes food straight into its mate's beak, which looks a lot like a kiss. All nine kinds of lovebird come from Africa and Madagascar.

Which large, long-necked water birds are famous symbols of love because they usually mate for life?

Swans often choose a partner years before they are old enough to nest, and most pairs then stay together for life.

Saint Valentine is also a patron saint of which group of workers?

Beekeepers claim him, and so do people with epilepsy and plague victims; his fame as the saint of sweethearts only took hold many centuries after his death.

Which ancient Roman festival, with a name thought to come from the Latin for 'wolf', fell in mid-February?

Lupercalia began at the cave where, legend said, a she-wolf nursed Rome's founders Romulus and Remus. Many historians doubt the festival has any real link to Valentine's Day.

Which TV show invented Galentine's Day, celebrated the day before Valentine's Day?

Parks and Recreation's Leslie Knope hosts it every February 13 in a 2010 episode: husbands and boyfriends stay home while she treats her female friends to breakfast, and real fans soon copied her.

Which Greek goddess was closely linked with the rose?

Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, had the rose as her sacred flower; one myth says its petals turned red when she pricked herself on a thorn.

An ancient belief put the wedding ring on the fourth finger for what reason?

Its vein led to the heart, or so people believed from Roman times. The same idea gave the finger its Old English name, the leech finger: 'leech' was an old word for a doctor.

Hershey's added a paper strip to every Kiss in 1921 to beat what?

Copycats sold look-alike chocolate drops, so a new wrapping machine added the branded paper plume; until then every Kiss was wrapped by hand.

In Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, who does Linus buy chocolates for?

His teacher, Miss Othmar, leaves with her boyfriend before he can hand the box over, so a heartbroken Linus throws the chocolates off a bridge. Sally had been sure they were meant for her.

The famous scene of two dogs kissing over a strand of spaghetti comes from which Disney film?

Lady and the Tramp serves its spaghetti dinner for two at Tony's restaurant. In 1955 it was the first Disney animated feature made in widescreen CinemaScope, so every scene had to be planned to fill a far wider picture.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is set in which Italian city?

Verona has a house billed as Juliet's own, and lovelorn visitors from around the world leave notes and letters to her on its walls.

Who answers the thousands of letters sent to Juliet in her Italian home city each year?

Local volunteers, known as Juliet's secretaries, read and reply to every letter in her name. The post has been arriving since the 1930s, much of it from people asking for help with their love lives.

The teddy bear, a classic Valentine gift, is named after which US president?

Theodore Roosevelt, nicknamed Teddy, refused to shoot a bear that had been tied to a tree on a 1902 Mississippi hunt; a cartoon of the scene inspired the toy's name.

Red as a valentine, which bird is the state bird of seven US states, more than any other?

The northern cardinal reminded early European settlers of the Catholic Church's cardinals, who wear red robes and caps, and the name stuck. Only the male is bright red.

What did the vinegar valentines sold in Victorian shops do?

Insulted the receiver: each carried a rude cartoon and a mocking verse, and was posted without a name. By the mid-1800s they are said to have made up about half of all valentines sold in the United States.

Which saint's day, January 25, do people in Wales celebrate as their own day for lovers?

Saint Dwynwen's legend says a suitor she could not marry was turned to ice. She wished never to marry, asked that true lovers be looked after, and became a nun on an island off Anglesey.

Each April 14, South Korean singles who got no Valentine's gifts mark a day called what?

Black Day singles eat noodles in black bean sauce, and many dress in dark colours to match.

Which country celebrates its lovers' day, Dia dos Namorados, in June rather than around Valentine's Day?

Brazil's Dia dos Namorados is June 12, the eve of Saint Anthony's Day, the matchmaking saint; mid-February usually falls around Carnival there.

Which colour of rose stands for friendship today, although Victorian flower books gave it the meaning jealousy?

Yellow roses say friendship now, but Kate Greenaway's Victorian guide, Language of Flowers, gave the yellow rose two gloomier meanings: 'decrease of love' and jealousy.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, which character loses her mind with grief and sings a song about Saint Valentine's day?

Ophelia, undone by her father's death, sings about a girl who waits at a young man's window on Saint Valentine's morning, hoping to be his valentine.

In Japan, women have long given male co-workers Valentine's giri choco, which means what?

Obligation chocolate goes to workmates out of politeness, while a sweetheart gets honmei choco, 'true feelings chocolate'. Many Japanese women have tired of the duty, and the office custom is fading.

Which trimming on fancy early valentines did factories later learn to imitate in paper?

Real lace and ribbons trimmed the fanciest cards. Then English factories learned to emboss paper and perforate it into imitation lace, and paper lace was soon being mass-produced.

In El Salvador, which name-drawing gift game is played on Valentine's Day?

Amigo secreto, 'secret friend', fits the day: El Salvador calls 14 February the Día del Amor y la Amistad, which honours friendship as much as romance.

Loveland, the 'Sweetheart City' famous for re-mailing valentines, is in which US state?

Loveland, Colorado has re-mailed valentines since the 1940s: each envelope is stamped with a love verse picked in a yearly contest, and more than 100,000 cards a year pass through the town.

In Norfolk, England, which mystery visitor knocks at the door each February, leaves presents for children on the step and vanishes?

Jack Valentine, also known as Old Father or Old Mother Valentine, is gone by the time the door opens. In a teasing version of the game, the parcel sits on a string and is whisked away as the child reaches for it.

In which country is Valentine's Day called Araw ng mga Puso and marked by free mass weddings led by town mayors?

The Philippines knows February 14 as the Day of Hearts. Town and city governments put on the weddings free as a public service, and a mayor may lead hundreds of couples through their vows at the same moment.

In an ancient Greek poem, a bee stings the little love god as he steals honey; how does his mother react?

Laughs at him: are you not just like the bee, she asks, so tiny and yet dealing such wounds? The little poem is credited, with some doubt, to the Greek poet Theocritus.

The firm that took over Sweethearts in 2018 also makes which lollipops?

Dum Dums are the best-known sweet from Spangler of Ohio. It bought Sweethearts in 2018, too late to make any for the next Valentine's Day, and had the hearts back in shops for 2020.

In Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, what does the only candy heart Charlie Brown receives say?

'Forget it, kid!' is all he gets at school, yet next day he gladly takes a second-hand valentine with the old name erased. After the 1975 broadcast, children across America posted him real ones.

In the legend behind China's Qixi festival, what separates the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid?

The Milky Way lies between the bright stars Vega and Altair, the Weaver and the Cowherd. A flock of magpies forms a bridge across it once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month.

On the eve of St Gregory's Day, Slovenia's old day for lovers, children float what down streams to welcome the longer days?

Candle-lit houses, called gregorčki, send the light away: by mid-March craftsmen no longer had to work by lamplight, so they 'threw the light in the water'. Folk tradition adds that the birds marry that day.