This coming Saturday will be Valentine’s Day here in the U.S., which originally dates back to a Catholic feast day in A.D. 496 to honor a third-century priest named Valentine who was executed on February 14. But, the first commercial Valentine’s cards were sold by Esther Howland in the 1840’s.
By the 1900s printed cards—that often included a chubby angel named Cupid printed on them— began appearing…