How many valentine cards are sent each year

But don't worry if you still have last year's box — they have a shelf life of five years. I mean, what better day is there for a marriage proposal than a day literally dedicated to love and romance? Valentine's Day is one of the popular days to pop the question, with as many as 6 million couples getting engaged on February Though couples exchange flowers and chocolate on this day, the holiday's focus is also directed at showing gratitude to friends!

In Japan, it's customary for just the women to give confections to the men in their lives, with the quality of the chocolate indicating their true feelings, according to Fortune. On March 14, exactly a month later, the men repay the favor by celebrating the increasingly popular "White Day. Product Reviews. Home Ideas.

United States. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. The Rise of the Cleanfluencer. Related Story. David Pollack Getty Images. Jackie Bale Getty Images. Peter Dazeley Getty Images. Valentine defied the ban and performed secret marriages, as History. For his disobedience, Valentine was executed on February 14th.

Each year, kids in classrooms across America hand out Valentine's Day cards to their classmates. For lack of a better phrase. She became known as the " Mother of the American Valentine " for the artistry and sentiment of her designs, as Time Magazine reports. Before Howland commercialized them, American Valentines were less romantic and more comical. Her inspiration came from the thoughtful and sweet greeting cards that were circulating in England, and she decided to sell similar designs in the U.

Needless to day, they took off. We're talking million greeting cards being exchanged industry-wide every year for Valentine's Day in the U. According to Smithsonian, they would wear the name pinned to their sleeve for one week so that everyone would know their supposed true feelings.

According to the National Confectioners Association, around 65 percent of Americans believe that the packaging of Valentine's Day candies and chocolates should be red and pink. In , Boston pharmacist Oliver Chase invented a machine that simplified the lozenge production process , resulting in the first candy-making machine, according to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America.

After identifying an opportunity to revolutionize the candy business, Chase shifted his focus to candy production with Necco wafers. It wasn't until 15 years after the creation of Necco wafers that Daniel Chase's brother, Oliver Chase, developed a way to press words onto the candy lozenges with a felt roller pad and vegetable food coloring. According to HuffPost , the conversational candies officially became heart-shaped in , and today Necco says about , of them are sold each year.

According to Time , the heart was once widely believed to be humans' center of memory, where feelings of love were recorded. However, we have French and Italian artists from the 14th century to thank for the symbol that we know and love today, as they were the first ones to start using this motif in their work. In Roman mythology, Cupid is the son of Venus , the goddess of love and beauty, as Medium reports. According to CNN, he's often depicted with a bow and arrows to pierce hearts and cast a spell of love.

Speaking of cupid and his roses , can you guess the favorite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess? The red rose, of course.

Lastly, after St. Valentine was buried, Julia, the daughter of the jailor, planted an almond tree with pink blossoms near his grave. Today, the almond tree is a symbol of lasting friendship and love.

Or, perhaps use this time of the year to give a little love to those in need. They had to wear the name on their sleeve for one week. Cupid is the son of Venus.

Venus was the god of beauty and love. In , King Henry the Eighth declared that February 14th was a holiday. King Henry the Eighth had most of his wives executed because they did not give birth to a son.