A Semi-Sweet Valentine’s Quiz

Valentine's Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and, of course, the United States. California must be the most romantic state.  Ours is the leading wholesale producer of
domestically produced cut flowers, accounting for nearly half of the $397 million industry.  California also ranks first in the number of chocolate and cocoa producers, with 136 of the nation’s 1241 establishments.

Here are some questions that test your knowledge of other Valentine facts.  Study the answers and impress your sweetheart!

1. According to legend, St. Valentine was a:
a. Roman priest
b. Greek god
c. French soldier
d. Italian orator

2. Which country has the only (reported) remains of St. Valentine?
a. United States
b. Canada
c. Ireland
d. Germany

3. Which two states have towns named Valentine?
a. Oregon and California
b. New York and New Hampshire
c. Oklahoma and Missouri
d. Nebraska and Texas

4. Which U.S. President met his first lady in Sunday school when he was 6, she 5?
a. George Bush
b. Harry Truman
c. Robert Taft
d. Abraham Lincoln

5. Which British poet wrote to his future wife, a renowned poet, on January 10, 1845, "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss ____” ? 
a. Dickens
b. Browning
c. Hopkins
d. Donne

6. Which baseball hero credited his wife with keeping him sane when rampant racism threatened his extraordinary career?
a. Jackie Robinson
b. Tony Gwynn
c. Willard Brown
d. Buck Leonard

7. Which U.S. holiday boasts the most greeting card sales?
a. Valentine’s Day
b. Mother’s Day
c. Christmas

8. Cupid is the legendary child of which Roman goddess?
a. Aphrodite
b. Diana
c. Venus

9.  Although Valentine greetings came about in the Middle Ages, when did the first mass-produced Valentine cards appear in the U.S.?
a. 1600s
b. 1700s
c. 1800s
d. 1900s

10. The earliest known written link between Valentine's Day and romance is found in a poem written by:
a. Alfred Lord Tennyson
b. Geoffrey Chaucer
c. Beowulf
d. Percy Shelley

Answers:

1.  a.  Most popular legend says he was a priest who served during the third century in Rome and was executed for defying the orders of Claudius II against marrying single men of combat age.

2. c.  Ireland.  They can be viewed each Valentine’s Day at Whitefriar Street Church in Dublin.

3.  d. Valentine, NE and Valentine, TX

4.  b. Harry Truman first saw Bess Wallace in Sunday school.

5.  b. Robert Browning wrote that line in his first letter to Elizabeth Barrett, after reading her volume of poetry, Poems. He was a little-known thirty-two-year-old poet and playwright; she was an internationally renowned poet, an invalid, and a thirty-nine-year-old spinster.  They married the following year.

6.  a.  Jackie Robinson met Rachel Isum in 1940 when she was a first-year nursing student at UCLA and he was already an accomplished athlete. They were married on February 10, 1946. Two weeks after the wedding, they left for Robinson's first spring training, for the minor league Montreal Royals, in Daytona Beach, Florida

7.  c.  Christmas, but Valentine’s day is second.

8. c.  Venus, the Roman goddess of love.  (Also the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.)

9. c.  In the 1840s, Esther Howland, a native of Massachusetts, is given credit for the first mass-produced Valentine cards.

10. b.  Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Foules, a poem written in 1392, honored the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia.

Information from:  History.com,Wikipedia.com, Negroleaguebaseball.com