Valentine's Day
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107 free Valentine's Day trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
101 free Valentine's Day trivia questions with answers. Valentine's Day is celebrated around the world on February 14, but how much do you really know about this holiday of love? From its origins in ancient Roman festivals and the legends of Saint Valentine, to modern traditions like heart-shaped chocolates, red roses, and romantic movies — this quiz covers it all. Test your knowledge on famous couples throughout history, Valentine's Day spending statistics, international celebrations, and the science of love itself. Whether you're a hopeless romantic or just love trivia, these 107 questions will challenge what you know about the world's most romantic day. The mix works for any room: the easy, funny Valentine's Day trivia (why conversation hearts exist, which animal Cupid rides in art, what Denmark sends instead of roses) suits kids' parties and Valentine's Day trivia for seniors at a community lunch, while the hard questions on Roman festivals, medieval poetry and chart-topping love songs will stretch a pub-quiz crowd. Every answer is checked against a published source and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 107 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pope is said to have first established the feast of Saint Valentine on February 14, in 496?
Gelasius I
Gelasius I (pope 492–496) is traditionally credited, though the decree usually cited names St George rather than St Valentine, and the idea that he replaced Lupercalia has no real evidence behind it.
Q 02What Roman festival of February 15 is often (if doubtfully) cited as a forerunner of Valentine's Day?
Lupercalia
Lupercalia, held on February 15, was a Roman purification and fertility rite; the romantic holiday first appears in Chaucer's fourteenth-century verse, long after the festival had died out in the late fifth century.
Q 03Who is credited with writing the first known Valentine's message while imprisoned in the Tower of London?
Charles, Duke of Orleans
Captured at Agincourt in 1415, he spent 24 years as an English hostage and wrote most of his five hundred surviving poems in captivity; the rondeau to his wife survives as the oldest known valentine.
Q 04Which poet first linked Valentine's Day with romantic love in his 1382 poem 'Parlement of Foules'?
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Parlement of Foules' (1382) contains the line 'For this was on Seynt Valentynes day, Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his make,' which is the earliest known association of Valentine's Day with romantic love.
Q 05Approximately how many Valentine's Day cards are exchanged annually in the United States?
190 million
That figure excludes the hundreds of millions of cards schoolchildren swap in class, and half of the adult-bought cards go to family members rather than a partner.
Q 06Most Valentine's roses sold in the US arrive by refrigerated plane from Colombia and which other country?
Ecuador
Ecuador and Colombia, Andean neighbours, supply the large majority of US cut-rose imports; the flowers are flown in chilled, mostly through Miami, to survive the trip.
Q 07In Japan, the cheap 'obligation chocolate' women hand to co-workers on February 14 is called what?
Giri-choko
Giri-choko ('obligation chocolate') is the cheap kind women give to co-workers; honmei-choko is reserved for someone they truly love, and disliked colleagues may get 'ultra-obligatory' chō-giri choko.
Q 08Which Valentine's candy traces back to an 1866 machine that stamped short sayings onto candy lozenges?
Sweethearts
Sweethearts conversation hearts descend from NECCO founder Oliver Chase's 1847 lozenge cutter; his brother Daniel devised a way to print sayings on the candy in 1866, and the heart shape followed in the early 1900s.
Q 09In the balcony scene, Juliet's 'wherefore art thou Romeo?' is asking what?
Why he is a Montague
'Wherefore' means 'why', so it is why he is a Montague that she laments: the boy she loves belongs to her family's enemies. She is not asking where he is.
Q 10Which US state was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1912?
Arizona
Arizona became the 48th state on February 14, 1912, the last of the contiguous states to join; New Mexico had been admitted five weeks earlier, on January 6, 1912.
Q 11Which city in Italy is considered the most romantic and is associated with Romeo and Juliet?
Verona
Verona, Italy is the setting of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Tourists visit 'Juliet's Balcony' at the Casa di Giulietta, and thousands of love letters are sent to Juliet there every year.
Q 12Which country celebrates its lovers' day on June 12, the eve of Saint Anthony's day?
Brazil
Brazil's Dia dos Namorados falls on June 12, the eve of Saint Anthony's day, when single women traditionally perform rituals called simpatias to find a husband.
Q 13What color roses symbolize friendship rather than romantic love?
Yellow
Yellow roses traditionally symbolize friendship, joy, and caring rather than romantic love. Red roses signify romantic love, white roses represent purity, and pink roses convey gratitude and admiration.
Q 21Which country celebrates 'Singles' Day' on November 11 as an anti-Valentine's Day?
China
China's Singles' Day began among Nanjing University bachelors in 1993, the date 11/11 chosen for its four lone '1's, and became the world's largest shopping day after Alibaba adopted it in 2009.
Q 22Which 1989 Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan comedy asked whether men and women can really be just friends?
When Harry Met Sally
When Harry Met Sally (1989) grew out of Nora Ephron's conversations with director Rob Reiner about his single life, with Billy Crystal shaping Harry; its Katz's Delicatessen scene is marked by a sign above the table.
Q 23What does 'XOXO' stand for in the context of Valentine's messages?
Hugs and kisses
Q 14Which 1990 film features the pottery wheel scene between Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze?
Ghost
Ghost was the highest-grossing film of 1990 and won two Academy Awards, for Whoopi Goldberg's supporting role and Bruce Joel Rubin's screenplay.
Q 15In Catalonia, lovers exchange roses and books on which saint's day, April 23?
Saint George
Sant Jordi, Saint George, is Catalonia's patron saint; on his feast day, April 23, couples traditionally exchange roses and books, and the date is also UNESCO's World Book Day.
Q 16How many martyred Saint Valentines do early martyrologies list under February 14?
Three
Three Saint Valentines share February 14 in the early martyrologies: Valentine of Rome, Valentine of Terni, and a third said to have suffered with companions in the Roman province of Africa, about whom nothing else is known.
Q 17In which country is February 14 celebrated as 'Día del Amor y la Amistad'?
Mexico
In Mexico and several Latin American countries, Valentine's Day is celebrated as 'Día del Amor y la Amistad' (Day of Love and Friendship), emphasizing both romantic love and platonic friendships.
Q 18Colombia holds its 'Día del amor y la amistad' on the third Saturday of which month, not February?
September
Colombia holds its Día del Amor y la Amistad on the third Saturday of September; the country grows a large share of the world's Valentine's roses yet celebrates its own love-and-friendship day months after February.
Q 19Which 1942 film ends with 'Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship'?
Casablanca
Casablanca (1942), starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, ends with this iconic line. The film is widely regarded as one of the greatest love stories in cinema history.
Q 20In ancient Egyptian medicine, the roles of which two organs were effectively swapped?
Heart and brain
Egyptians treated the heart as the seat of thought and the brain as unimportant, which is why embalmers preserved the heart and discarded the brain.
XOXO reads as hugs and kisses, X for a kiss and O for a hug; the earliest use of X for a kiss found by the Oxford English Dictionary is in Florence Montgomery's 1878 novel Seaforth.
Q 24Once classroom exchanges are counted, which group receives the most valentines in the US?
Teachers
Teachers receive the most valentines in the US once classroom exchanges are counted: a teacher with thirty pupils collects a stack every year, which is why school exchanges dwarf the adult card trade.
Q 25The heart shape symbol used on Valentine's Day is thought to be based on the shape of which plant's seed?
Silphium
Silver coins from Cyrene, in modern Libya, carry the shape alongside the plant itself, and silphium was so prized it was eventually harvested to extinction.
Q 26Which 2003 British romantic film weaves ten interconnected pre-Christmas stories?
Love Actually
Love Actually (2003), Richard Curtis's directing debut, opens five weeks before Christmas and counts down week by week through ten intertwined stories, with an epilogue a month later.
Q 27Cupid's Greek counterpart, the god of love, is known by what name?
Eros
Eros is the Greek god of love whom the Romans called Cupid; in Hesiod's Theogony he is one of the primordial gods, while later poets made him Aphrodite's son.
Q 28Which diarist recorded 1660s London valentine customs, such as drawing names by lot?
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys's diary for the 1660s records Valentine's customs such as drawing names by lot and giving gifts; on February 14, 1667 he noted that young Will Mercer came to be his wife's valentine.
Q 29What chemical compound, sometimes called the 'love hormone,' is released during hugging and bonding?
Oxytocin
Oxytocin, often called the 'love hormone' or 'cuddle hormone,' is released during physical touch, hugging, and bonding activities. It plays a key role in social bonding, trust, and romantic attachment.
Q 30The Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929 took place in which American city?
Chicago
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre took place in Chicago on February 14, 1929, when seven men linked to Bugs Moran's North Side gang were shot by Al Capone's associates in a North Clark Street garage, a defining Prohibition-era crime.