Q 01/05

Which pope is said to have first established the feast of Saint Valentine on February 14, in 496?

A) Leo I

B) Gregory I

C) Gelasius I

D) Sylvester I

Answer · why

C) 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 re...

Q 02/05

What Roman festival of February 15 is often (if doubtfully) cited as a forerunner of Valentine's Day?

A) Lupercalia

B) Saturnalia

C) Bacchanalia

D) Floralia

Answer · why

A) Lupercalia

Lupercalia, held on February 15, was a Roman purification and fertility rite; the romantic holiday first appears in Chaucer's fourteenth-century verse...

Q 03/05

Who is credited with writing the first known Valentine's message while imprisoned in the Tower of London?

A) Geoffrey Chaucer

B) Charles, Duke of Orleans

C) Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder

D) Sir Walter Raleigh

Answer · why

B) 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...

Q 04/05

Which poet first linked Valentine's Day with romantic love in his 1382 poem 'Parlement of Foules'?

A) Dante Alighieri

B) John Gower

C) Francesco Petrarch

D) Geoffrey Chaucer

Answer · why

D) 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 mak...

Q 05/05

Approximately how many Valentine's Day cards are exchanged annually in the United States?

A) 50 million

B) 190 million

C) 500 million

D) 1 billion

Answer · why

B) 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 th...