Every February, peo­ple across the nation pull out their wal­lets to spend money on their spe­cial some­one, but most peo­ple are unaware of how Valentine’s Day came to be.

The ori­gin of St. Valentine’s Day is still some­what of a mys­tery. One leg­end claims that Valentine was a priest in Rome dur­ing the third century.

During this time, Emperor Claudius II believed that sin­gle men made bet­ter sol­diers than mar­ried men; there­fore, the emperor out­lawed mar­riage for all young men.

Valentine viewed the emperor’s decree as unjust and secretly per­formed mar­riage cer­e­monies for young cou­ples behind the emperor’s back. Eventually, Valentine’s prac­tices were dis­cov­ered and the emperor sen­tenced him to death dur­ing the mid­dle of February.

Another leg­end con­tends that Valentine was placed in jail for his mis­deeds. While in prison, the saint fell in love with a girl who vis­ited him dur­ing his period of confinement.

Before Valentine was put to death, he wrote his lover a let­ter and signed it as “from your Valentine.” This expres­sion is still in use today.

The truth about Valentine’s Day may never be fully known, but nev­er­the­less mil­lions of peo­ple cel­e­brate the hol­i­day every year by giv­ing var­i­ous tokens of love to that sig­nif­i­cant per­son in their life. St. Valentine might have been exe­cuted, but his legacy of love will still live on for years to come.