ALTERNATE HISTORIAN'S NOTE: Congratulations to our Valentine's Day Contest winner, Phil Ulrich, whose entry ends today's post! Please send us entries for our next contest, which will be an Alternate April Fool's Day, April 1st, 2006. Just send us the entries for now - we'll decide on a deadline later. (Contest rules) And, another cool thing - Let us know where you are on Frappr!
February 14th, 2006
in 47,421 BCE, Telka the Speaker is wooed by and mated with the father of her first children, the man she names Komar. She learns to count the days in a year by the anniversary of this day each year that she was with him. His love for her led him to throw himself in front of a boar that was charging her; although he saved her and killed the boar, he died from injuries he received. Telka made sure that each of her descendants celebrated this day out of her love for him.
in 1123 Post-Creation, the angel Derdekea, mother of Achazia, finds Lucifer in far corner of Heaven and comforts him. “Much has changed since you left, bright one,” she tells him, “and much should not have.” He feels a swelling of love for her, and they spend the day together, while Lucifer forgets his sorrow.
in 269, Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men, in order to make them a better pool to draft soldiers from. The Christian cleric Valentius was known for his defiance of Rome, and many young couples came to him in order to wed. Valentius performed the ceremonies gladly until the local centurion told him that he would be executed after the next one. Valentius relented, but the decree was rescinded in 271 after Claudius’ death, anyway, so nothing ever really came of it.
in 1167 AUC, the Lupercalia Festival is finally made a separate holiday from the festival celebrating the founding of Rome. This festival of ritual matchmaking, popular for hundreds of years, was certainly the highlight of the 2-day celebration at the ides of February, and most Romans felt that it deserved separation from the more staid founding ceremony.
in 498, Pope Gelasius names this day the Feast of Saint Valentine. In his honor, prisoners across the land were given a meal of ox-hearts and red wine, to signify the blood that the saint had shed while a prisoner of the pagan Romans. The traditional feast of hearts and wine continues to this day across Christendom, although the practice has spread from the jailhouse to all those who might need a prayer for more freedom.
in 1415, Pope Henry V commissions a host of poets to compose a series of love notes to Catherine of Valois, in order to woo her into agreeing to become his Papal Consort. After the success of the poems, it became a standard practice in the Holy British Empire to compose poetry for a loved one on St. Valentine’s Day.
in 1847, Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachussetts, thinks up a unique way to celebrate the romantic holiday of St. Valentine’s Day. She constructs heart-shaped cards and decorations of red scrap and sells them from her college apartment. Most people whom she approaches to buy this feel that this cheapens the holiday, and she never manages to make a going concern of it.
in 1918, Mikhail von Heflin and Velma Porter, sailing on the Caesar Augustus for England, celebrate the anniversary of their joining, which will take place in 34 years; this time, Porter is not driven mad by the experience, although the neighboring cabins are somewhat taken aback by the animal passion they hear coming from the pair.
in 1965, the Soviet States of America bans the unofficial Valentine’s Day holiday. Comrade Representative O’Hare of Chicago, in her statement calling for the ban, said, “No other holiday so cheapens the idea of romantic love, or saps the will to fight of our comrades in the street, as this so-called Valentine’s Day.”
in 2005, Dave Lange and Jeanne Best, still recovering from plastic surgery in Arizona, ask one of the Save Earth members who is a preacher to marry them. Since their cover story was going to make them a married couple anyway, the preacher is only too happy to comply. “On this day of love, let us forget the monsters that make us hide,” the preacher says, and the couple agrees.
in 2021, a rare form of cosmic radiation enters Earth's atmosphere, concentrated in and around Chicago. 99.9% of the city only feels a slight tingling, but one man, Eddie Valens, finds his reflexes and
running speed amplified tenfold - plus, he is now able to evoke feelings of love and peace in nearly anyone with but a word. Putting these two together, and donning a pink costume, Eddie takes the name Saint Valentine and proceeds to fight crime in Chicago for nearly a decade as one of the only real superheroes in the 21st century.
Timelines in today's post: the Speaker, the Fall, the Roman timeline, the Holy British Empire, the Mlosh, von Heflin, Communist America and The Claw.
Today's "Six Degrees of Star Trek" challenge: Connect Rudolph Valentino, the silent movie star, to Star Trek. Place your answers in the comments and see the Forum for previous results. For more on 6 degrees games, click here.
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2 comments:
Valentino was in Beyond the Rocks, with Gloria Swanson; Swanson was in Airport '75 with Charleton Heston; Heston was in the 2001 Planet of the Apes with David Warner; David Warner was in Star Trek VI.
Is that another 5 for Max? I'll have to check...
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