15 Awesome Facts about Valentine’s Day

• According to legend it was St. Valentine himself who sent the first valentine in the form of a letter to his jailer’s blind daughter with whom he had fallen in love. Just before he was put to death at the hands of King Claudius II for marrying the kings soldiers without the king’s permission he penned a note to his love and signed it: From your Valentine.
• 53% of women in America would dump their boyfriends if they did not get them anything for Valentine’s Day
• Every year around 1 billion Valentine cards are sent across. After Christmas it’s a single largest seasonal card-sending occasion.
• Spending on jewelry is expected to reach $3.5 billion this holiday; 17.3% of people are likely to buy it
• 46 percent of Americans will exchange Valentine’s Day candy.
• Lovebirds are often associated with Valentine’s Day. These lovebirds found in Africa, are brightly colored and sit very close together with their mates, earning them their name.
• Children receive 39 percent of all Valentine’s Day candy and gifts. Following them are wives/mothers (36 percent), fathers/husbands (6 percent), grandparents (3 percent), and pets (1 percent).
• 73% of people who buy flowers for Valentine’s Day are men, while only 27 percent are women.
• Every Valentine’s Day, the Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare’s lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet.
• It was once believed that if a woman saw a flying robin on Valentine’s day she would end up getting married to a sailor. If a sparrow was the bird she saw she would end up marrying a man that was poor and live a happy life, if she saw a goldfinch then she was to marry a man that was a millionaire. One can only wonder who she would marry if she saw a crow.
• About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine’s Day gifts to their pets.
• 15 percent of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day.
• According to the condom company Durex, condom sales are highest around Valentine’s Day, which are 20 percent to 30 percent higher than usual.
• The oldest surviving love poem till date is written in a clay tablet from the times of the Sumerians, inventors of writing, around 3500 B.C.
• 11% of Americans will be engaged on Valentine’s Day.
• More at-home pregnancy tests are sold in March than in any other month.