what date is valentines day

Valentines Day is celebrated annually on February 14. It is a global holiday that traditionally celebrates romantic love, and it has become one of the most commercially important holidays of the year. On Valentines Day, people celebrate their loved ones by exchanging Valentines Day cards, chocolates, gifts, and flowers, especially red roses. The evening is also popular for date nights. Valentines Day did not come to be celebrated as a day of romance until about the 14th century. Although there were several Christian martyrs named Valentine, the day may have taken its name from a priest who was martyred about 270 CE by the emperor Claudius II Gothicus. According to legend, the priest signed a letter "from your Valentine" to his jailers daughter, whom he had befriended and, by some accounts, healed from blindness.