ON THIS DAY - FEBRUARY 14th

ON THIS DAY - FEBRUARY 14th

So it’s St. Valentine’s Day, the feast day of two Christian martyrs both named Valentine: one a priest and physician, the other the Bishop of Terni. Both are purported to have been beheaded on this day.

The day was first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. In 18th-century England, it evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards.

EVENTS:

But the day has not always been marked by romantic events… for example, OTD in 1349, 2,000 Jews were burned at the stake in Strasbourg while in 1400, the deposed English King Richard II was murdered in Yorkshire. Furthermore in 1929, the "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" took place in Chicago; seven gangsters who were rivals of Al Capone were killed, while in 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, calling on Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie because of his novel "The Satanic Verses."

But I can finish with something less negative: OTD in 2005, the video-sharing website YouTube was launched by a group of college students. It is now the largest video sharing website in the world.

BIRTHS:

There are a just a couple of births to point out today. The English film director, producer and screenwriter Alan Parker was born OTD in 1944. Parker is noted for having a wide range of filmmaking styles and working in differing genres. 

And another of my heroes was born OTD in 1951 – Kevin Keegan, the former Liverpool footballer.

And apparently, there are no countries celebrating their independence today! Never mind!

http://www.englishwaves.fr/podcasts-41-on-this-day-.html