Valentine's Day history
Saint Valentine (multiple), Lupercalia origins, why February 14. History trivia for the curious.
Q1.On what date is Valentine's Day observed each year?Tap to reveal
Answer: February 14
The date is fixed rather than movable, which is why it can land on any day of the week and occasionally on Ash Wednesday.
Q2.According to tradition, in which ancient city was Saint Valentine martyred?Tap to reveal
Answer: Rome
Church records from late antiquity list at least two and possibly three different martyrs named Valentinus, and their stories were blended together over the centuries.
Q3.Cheap postage introduced across Britain in 1840 is credited with the first boom in posted valentines; what is that reform usually called?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Penny Post
Prepaid postage at a flat rate also made it easy to send a card without signing it, and the Victorian fashion for anonymous valentines dates from this period.
Q4.Which Roman festival, held in mid-February, is often described as a pre-Christian ancestor of Valentine's Day?Tap to reveal
Answer: Lupercalia
The link is contested: many historians argue the connection was invented by antiquarian writers centuries later and that no early source ties the two together.
Q5.Which Roman emperor is said in legend to have ordered the execution of Saint Valentine?Tap to reveal
Answer: Claudius II
The story that he banned marriage for young soldiers, prompting Valentine to wed couples in secret, appears only in medieval retellings and has no contemporary evidence behind it.
Q6.Which English poet first connected St Valentine's Day with mating birds and choosing a mate, in his poem Parlement of Foules?Tap to reveal
Answer: Geoffrey Chaucer
The poem dates from around 1382, and some scholars credit the Savoyard poet Oton de Grandson with developing the same idea at roughly the same moment.
Q7.Which pope is traditionally credited with establishing a feast day for Saint Valentine in AD 496?Tap to reveal
Answer: Pope Gelasius I
The attribution rests on a single line in a later martyrology, and the same pope is separately remembered for suppressing the Lupercalia festival.
Q8.Charles, Duke of Orleans wrote what is often called the oldest surviving valentine while held prisoner in which London building?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Tower of London
He wrote it in French to his wife after being captured at Agincourt in 1415, and the manuscript is now held by the British Library.
Q9.In 1969 the Catholic Church removed St Valentine's feast from which calendar, while still recognising him as a saint?Tap to reveal
Answer: The General Roman Calendar
The revision dropped a number of saints whose historical record was judged too thin, but local churches were left free to keep celebrating them.
Q10.Which Italian city claims Saint Valentine as its patron and houses relics said to be his?Tap to reveal
Answer: Terni
One of the competing Valentine figures is described as a bishop of that city in Umbria, and its basilica still draws couples who come to be blessed each February.
Cards, chocolates, and roses
Hallmark's role, Cadbury chocolates, red roses meaning. Commercial trivia.
Q1.Which flower, especially in its red form, is the traditional Valentine's Day gift?Tap to reveal
Answer: The red rose
The association runs back to classical mythology, where the flower was sacred to Venus, and was reinforced by Victorian floriography that assigned meanings to individual blooms.
Q2.What are the small pastel heart-shaped sweets printed with short messages such as BE MINE commonly called?Tap to reveal
Answer: Conversation hearts
They descend from a nineteenth-century lozenge that carried printed mottoes on paper slips tucked inside the candy shell.
Q3.Which colour of rose is traditionally taken to signify friendship rather than romance?Tap to reveal
Answer: Yellow
In earlier Victorian flower dictionaries the same bloom stood for jealousy or a dying love, and the friendlier meaning only settled in during the twentieth century.
Q4.Which member of the Cadbury family introduced decorated 'fancy boxes' of chocolates as Valentine's gifts in the 1860s?Tap to reveal
Answer: Richard Cadbury
The lids were painted so that buyers would keep the empty boxes for letters and keepsakes, which is why examples still turn up in museum collections.
Q5.Which American businesswoman, known as the Mother of the American Valentine, began mass-producing lace-and-paper valentines in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the 1840s?Tap to reveal
Answer: Esther Howland
She built an assembly line of women workers in her own home, each adding one element to the card, years before greeting cards became a national industry.
Q6.What name is given to the genre of Victorian valentine card that insulted its recipient instead of flattering them?Tap to reveal
Answer: Vinegar valentines
Postage was often paid by the recipient in that era, so the target of the joke also had to pay to receive the insult.
Q7.Which greeting card company, founded in Kansas City in 1910, is the largest American maker of Valentine cards?Tap to reveal
Answer: Hallmark
The company began as a postcard business run out of a shoebox by a teenage salesman named Joyce Hall.
Q8.In Japan, women traditionally give chocolate on February 14 and men reciprocate a month later on a day known as what?Tap to reveal
Answer: White Day
The reciprocal date was launched by Japanese confectioners in the late 1970s and has since spread to South Korea, China and Taiwan.
Q9.Which South American country is the largest supplier of fresh cut flowers to the United States?Tap to reveal
Answer: Colombia
Most of those blooms are grown on the high plateau near Bogota and flown into Miami, where air cargo traffic spikes in the weeks before February 14.
Q10.Which compound found in chocolate makes it dangerous for dogs to eat?Tap to reveal
Answer: Theobromine
Dogs metabolise it far more slowly than humans do, and dark chocolate contains several times more of it per gram than milk chocolate.
Romantic movies and music
Casablanca, Notebook, When Harry Met Sally. Romantic movies have their own canon.
Q1.Which actress played Rose opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the 1997 film Titanic?Tap to reveal
Answer: Kate Winslet
The elderly Rose in the framing story was played by Gloria Stuart, who at 87 was the oldest acting nominee in Academy Award history until Christopher Plummer was nominated at 88.
Q2.Which 1990 romantic comedy starred Julia Roberts and Richard Gere as Vivian and Edward?Tap to reveal
Answer: Pretty Woman
The script began life as a bleak drama about prostitution called 3000 and was heavily rewritten once Disney's Touchstone label picked it up.
Q3.Which Canadian singer recorded My Heart Will Go On, the theme from Titanic?Tap to reveal
Answer: Celine Dion
The take used in the finished film was a rough demo recorded in a single session, because the director had initially resisted having a pop song at all.
Q4.In the 1990 film Ghost, which Righteous Brothers song plays during the famous pottery wheel scene?Tap to reveal
Answer: Unchained Melody
The recording dates from 1965 and originally appeared as a B-side, and its use in the film sent it back into the charts twenty-five years later.
Q5.Which 1987 film produced the line Nobody puts Baby in a corner?Tap to reveal
Answer: Dirty Dancing
It was made on a small budget by a first-time feature director and was expected to run briefly before going straight to video.
Q6.Whitney Houston's version of I Will Always Love You was written and first recorded by which country singer?Tap to reveal
Answer: Dolly Parton
She wrote it in 1973 as a farewell to her professional partner Porter Wagoner, and it topped the country chart twice in her own voice before Houston recorded it.
Q7.Which 1989 romantic comedy written by Nora Ephron ends with Billy Crystal's character making a declaration on New Year's Eve?Tap to reveal
Answer: When Harry Met Sally
The elderly couples telling their love stories between scenes were actors performing real stories the filmmakers had collected in interviews.
Q8.Which film starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman features the song As Time Goes By?Tap to reveal
Answer: Casablanca
The song was written for a Broadway show a decade before the film, and the studio wanted to cut it until it emerged that reshoots were impossible because Bergman had already cut her hair for another role.
Q9.Which 2004 film about a couple erasing their memories of each other takes its title from a poem by Alexander Pope?Tap to reveal
Answer: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The line comes from Eloisa to Abelard, an eighteenth-century verse letter based on the real correspondence of two medieval lovers.
Q10.Which Elvis Presley ballad, opening 'Wise men say, only fools rush in', borrows its melody from the eighteenth-century French song Plaisir d'amour?Tap to reveal
Answer: Can't Help Falling in Love
Jean-Paul-Egide Martini published the original tune in 1784, so the melody was already more than 175 years old when Presley recorded it for Blue Hawaii.
Pop culture Valentine's moments
Famous proposals, royal weddings, viral love stories. Pop culture trivia.
Q1.In the Peanuts special Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, which character does Charlie Brown hope will send him a card?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Little Red-Haired Girl
Charles Schulz never drew her face in the comic strip across its fifty-year run, although later animated specials did put her on screen.
Q2.Which 2010 ensemble romantic comedy named after the holiday featured Julia Roberts, Ashton Kutcher and Taylor Swift?Tap to reveal
Answer: Valentine's Day
Its director had already made Pretty Woman two decades earlier and reunited several of that film's cast members in small roles.
Q3.The line about life being like a box of chocolates comes from which 1994 film?Tap to reveal
Answer: Forrest Gump
Winston Groom's novel carries no such comparison — its narrator says only that being an idiot is no box of chocolates — so the version audiences quote was written for the screenplay.
Q4.Which television comedy introduced Galentine's Day, celebrated on February 13?Tap to reveal
Answer: Parks and Recreation
The invented holiday jumped off the screen into real life and is now used in marketing campaigns by florists, restaurants and card companies.
Q5.In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which teacher fills the school with dwarfs delivering singing valentines?Tap to reveal
Answer: Gilderoy Lockhart
The same character's obsession with his own publicity is what ultimately backfires on him, since his magical speciality turns out to be memory charms.
Q6.In The Simpsons, Lisa gives Ralph Wiggum a valentine card carrying what train-themed message?Tap to reveal
Answer: I Choo-Choo-Choose You
The episode was built around a real classroom custom in which children must give a card to every classmate, so nobody is left with an empty desk.
Q7.Which 1993 romantic comedy ends with its two leads finally meeting on Valentine's Day at the top of the Empire State Building?Tap to reveal
Answer: Sleepless in Seattle
The meeting is a deliberate echo of An Affair to Remember, a film the characters watch and argue about earlier in the story.
Q8.Which 1955 Disney animated film contains the famous scene of two dogs sharing a plate of spaghetti?Tap to reveal
Answer: Lady and the Tramp
Walt Disney reportedly wanted the scene cut for looking undignified, and it survived only because an animator built a version he could not refuse.
Q9.Which 1981 Canadian slasher film, set in a mining town, takes its title from a message on a valentine card?Tap to reveal
Answer: My Bloody Valentine
The Irish rock band that later borrowed the same name has always been vague about whether the film was the direct inspiration.
Running Valentine's trivia
Valentine's trivia works at couples-themed events. Mix history (universal) with romantic movies (everyone has a favorite). Add a 'name the famous couple' round.
Trivio.NET has Valentine's packs in the Holidays & Events category.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Valentine's Day trivia for kids?
Most is — history, cards, traditions. Romantic movie deep cuts work better for adult crowds.
What's the most-asked Valentine's trivia?
Why Feb 14? (Multiple Saint Valentine theories.) Who started Valentine cards? (Hallmark, but tradition predates them.)
Where can I find Valentine's trivia packs?
Trivio.NET's Holidays & Events category has Valentine's packs.
How long should Valentine's trivia be?
20-30 minutes max — keep romantic vibe casual, not exhausting.
