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The cliche ideas of Valentine’s Day—the roses, chocolates, and construction paper cards—are not what this collection is about. The history of Valentine's cards is rich: they are the love letters of culture’s past.

Today, February 14 Valentine's Day, which is celebrated with gifts such as red roses, heart chocolates and teddy bears, dates back to a festival celebrated in Ancient Rome in the 6th century BC.The unchanging symbol of February 14, which has passed through various stages and loaded different meanings over time, is love and love.

On Valentine's Day, millions present flowers, chocolates and cards to their sweethearts. While the holiday's traditions really became cemented in the 1800s, historians link its roots to wild pagan revelries from before the birth of Saint Valentine himself.

The origins of Valentine’s Day are pretty obscure. While scholars generally agree that the holiday was popularized in the 1840s in the U.K. and U.S., the specific historical roots of the celebration remain ambiguous. Some say it began with the Roman pagan festival Lupercalia, a fertility festival from February 13-15 involving animal sacrifice, ritualized sex play, and general debauchery. Others point to Roman emperor Claudius II’s execution of several men named Valentine on February 14, one of whom later became a martyr in the Christian faith. Fast forward several centuries and the holiday shows up again in the Middle Ages, with Chaucer’s poem “Parliament of Fowls” (referring to the mating pattern of birds in early spring), and later in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which alludes to lucky lovers meeting on St. Valentine’s Day. But how do a pagan fertility festival, a Christian martyr, and English poetry connect with this now ubiquitous, commercialized celebration of love?

Jolene Sliwka was searching through a thrift store for vintage t-shirts and used records 35 years ago when she picked up a “scratch off and sniff” Valentine’s Day card and added it to her haul.

What is love? Scientists explain it in terms of the body’s release of adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin; cynics refute its existence by citing ancient philosophy. The Greeks had six words to describe it, whereas Merriam Webster offers a simple definition. More recently, a Hallmark card asserted that love is when you find “the sprinkled donut in a sea of glazed.”

The month of February comes again, and the crowds come again about whether Indonesians should celebrate the so-called "Valentine's Day". Regardless of the choice of dear readers, let's look at a number of facts about this world-wide Western tradition.

Pets, spouses, co-workers, friends, classmates: They’re all in line to be on the receiving end of another record year for Valentine’s Day spending, says a new survey by the National Retail Federation.