My media experience with Valentine's Day history has always been watching or seeing photos of a bloody massacre in Kansas City on February 14. Not romantic and insulting to our intelligence. I'm sure it will be played out many times today as well.
Here is the true history of Valentine's Day and it is very romantic and as far as I can tell, it is a true story. I will be paraphrasing and summarizing a lot but you'll still get the whole picture if I'm any good at this.
Timeline: about 300 years after the death of Jesus.
Place: Rome
Ruler: Claudius II the Cruel
Status of Rome: many unpopular wars were spurned on by Emperor Claudius.
Claudius' Problem: men did not want to go to war, they wanted to stay home with family
Summary: During this period a kind priest by the name of Valentine went about his daily duties and really didn't stand out from the crowd much at all, other than the villagers considered Priest Valentine the one to go to if they wanted to get married.
Claudius reasoned that if men could not get married, there would be nothing to hold them back from going off to his wars so he simply banned marriage and engagements in Rome. This shocking edict from an unpopular ruler did not go over well. Even the Holy Priest Valentine disobeyed the edict and continued to marry young couples as usual.
Claudius was infuriated by this disloyalty and ordered the priest arrested. He sentenced Valentine to be beaten and beheaded on February 14, 270 AD. While in prison awaiting his sentence, Priest Valentine, who was treated very well by the jailer's daughter, wrote her a note and signed it "From Your Valentine."
Over the next two thousand years, that incident has evolved into what we celebrate today as Valentine's Day.
