Long before St. Valentine lived, this time of year had strong links with fertility. February 14 is the day that birds traditionally pick their mates. This may be why so many customs developed in connection with new love on this particular date.

February 15 was when the Roman festival of Lupercalis - the Wolf - took place. Young men would hold a lottery to decide which girl would be theirs. In Medieval times, girls ate strange foods on Valentine's Day to make them dream of their future husband.

In the Middle Ages, it was believed that the first single person of the opposite sex you encountered on the morning of Valentine's Day, was the person you would marry.

During the middle of the 17th century, married people took a Valentine, and it wasn't always their "better half."

No one is sure who St. Valentine actually was. Two men could be responsible for the association with love and marriage on this day. The most likely St. Valentine was a priest during the reign of Roman Emperor Claudius II.

Emperor Claudius issued a decree that made it illegal for Roman soldiers to marry - because it inhibited their ability to fight! However, romantic Valentine continued to marry soldiers in secret, until eventually the clandestine ceremonies were discovered and he was beheaded. Valentine was in love with his jailer's daughter and he left her a note signed 'Your Valentine' before being taken away to his death.

Man's attempts at flight date back to around 1020 when Oliver of Malmesbury, an English Benedictine monk, strapped a huge pair of wings to his body and try to soar into the air from Malmesbury Abbey. He broke both legs.

In 1783, Jacques Charles released a large unmanned balloon from Paris. It landed in Gonesse where it was attacked and destroyed by villagers who thought it was a monster.

In the early years of this century the Parisian Count de Guiseux created an Aeroplane Bicycle. The device featured large wings fixed to a bicycle with a propeller linked to the drive chain of the back wheel. To have any hope of elevation, the Count had to pedal furiously, making any form of flight an exhausting prospect.

The aerial velocipede was the brainchild of Monsieur A. Goupil in the 1870s. Resembling a unicycle beneath a Zeppelin, it proved spectacularly unsuccessful despite an optimistic write-up in the French trade press.

In 1742, French nobleman the Marquis de Bacqueville launched an ambitious attempt to fly across the River Seine in Paris with paddles strapped to his arms and legs. With a huge crowd gathered below, he leaped from a window ledge on the top floor of his house and began flapping vigorously. He fell like a rock but was lucky enough to land on a pile of old clothes in a washerwoman's boat. He sustained nothing worse than a broken leg.

Former traffic policeman William Alexander set out to drive the 15 miles from Hereford to Ross-on-Wye in 1996. He and his wife were found confused 36 hours later, after a 1,000 mile drive, going the wrong way down the MI near Barnsley.

In 1994, a nun who said she was rushing an injured dog to the vet was fined for reckless driving after refusing to stop for armed police in New York State.

Leroy Linen, a scrap-metal dealer from the Bronx, was banned from driving 633 times between 1990 and 1994.

Assuming she had failed after hitting the curb during her 1995 test at Lowestoft, Tcheeka Johnson punched the examiner on the leg, screeched to a halt and pushed her out of the passenger door.

Trying to test his oil level manually, a Wakefield motorcyclist got his finger stuck in the oil tank and had to summon the fire brigade to release him.

Gerald Ford used to let off loud farts and blame them on his Secret Service men.

John Quincy Adams loved to swim in the nude.

Chestur Arthur was a clothes hog who owned over 80 pairs of
pants.

Grover Cleveland is the only U.S. president who personally hanged someone. He threw a noose over two criminals' necks while working as a sheriff.

Warren G. Harding once gambled and lost a box of priceless White House china during a poker game.

John F. Kennedy was plagued by the venereal disease chlamydia and spent the first moments of the Bay of Pigs invasion getting a giant shot of penicillin.

TAIPEI, Taiwan - Taiwan is running out of space for new cemeteries and fears it will not have enough room to accomodate its dense population. The Houston-based Celestis Inc. has come up with a solution for Taiwan's problem - sending people's remains into space. The firm signed a deal with one of Taiwan's largest funeral homes, Baushan Enterprise, to offer "space burials" to the Taiwanese. Robert Tysor, chief executive of Celestis, explained that the ashes are packed into an aluminum tube and shot into space on commercial rockets from bases in the U.S. and Russia. The tube orbits Earth once every 90 minutes before returning to the planet and burning up. Space burials cost about 400,000 New Taiwan dollars (US$12,000). Families also have the option of sending their loved one's ashes to the moon's surface for about NT$1 million (US$30,000).

DUNCAN, Okla. - A man had such a hard time parting with his glass eye that he had it refitted into a ring. Michael Burton had the artificial eye for 35 years because of an industrial accident and recently had to have it refitted. Since he didn't want to just dispose of it, he took it to jeweler Al Nix. "That eye cost me two-thousand dollars 35 years ago," Burton said. "It took three days for people to hand-paint that eye. To throw it away would be like buying a new car and just taking my old car to the dump. I guess
it's like they say -- one man's trash is another man's treasure." Nix put together a design team that designed a ring incorporating the odd shape of the artificial eye. It took the team about four weeks to set the eye and another four to complete the ring. Three ounces of gold set the eye as a stone. Burton was delighted with the result.

FREDRICKSBURG, Va. - A Virginia man has been charged with pulling off a neighbor's prosthetic leg and beating him with it during an argument. The fight started when the victim, Michael Clapp, 38, discovered a bottle of medicine missing from his Townsend Boulevard apartment Wednesday night, The Free Lance Star of Fredricksburg, Va., reported Friday. Clapp suspected his neighbor, 27-year-old Rodney Prophitt, and went next door to confront him, city police spokesman Jim Shelhorse said. Upon being confronted, Prophitt knocked Clapp to the ground, then pulled off Clapp's artificial leg and struck him with it several times. "At some point, Clapp was able to grab his leg back, get back to his apartment and call 911," Shelhorse said. Police charged Prophitt with felonious assault and petty larceny. Clapp was treated at Mary Washington Hospital for a broken nose and other facial injuries.

Urinating in an open grave cures incontinence.

Passing a child three times under the belly of a donkey cures whooping cough.

Touching a corpse's hand cures a sore throat.

Stick an elder twig in your ear and wear it night and day to cure deafness.

Carry a child through a flock of sheep to cure respiratory problems.

To cure fever, place the patient on a sandy shore when the tide is coming in. The waves will carry away the disease.

A cork under the pillow at night cures cramps.

Rubbing the grease off church bells into your body cures shingles.

Tying a hairy caterpillar in a bag around a child's neck cures whooping cough.

Throwing a dung beetle over your shoulder cures a stomach ache.

ALBANY, New York - A man was pulled over by police for driving while watching porn. You read that right. Andre Gainey was enjoying an adult video called "Chocolate Foam" while driving his Mercedes Benz when he was caught by an officer at a stop light. Detectives pulled him over when they saw the movie playing in the car's headrests. When they stopped him, they noticed another screen in the passenger-side visor that was facing Gainey, permitting him to watch the movie while driving. According to Joe Pichi, a spokesman for the state's Department of Motor Vehicles, this case is believed to be the first of its kind in New York.
"Our biggest problem is illegal cell phone use while driving," Pichi said. "Drivers should be driving."

March 1 is National Pig Day and Peanut Butter Lover's Day
March 2 is Old Stuff Day
March 4 is Holy Experiment Day
March 5 is Multiple Personalities Day
March 10 is Festival Of Life In The Cracks Day
March 15 is Buzzard's Day and Everything You Think Is Wrong Day
March 16 is Everything You Do Is Right Day
March 22 is National Goof-off Day
March 27 is National "Joe" Day
March 28 is Something On A Stick Day