Don't you just love saints' days? There are so many of them that nobody worked at all during the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution happened first in Britain because we didn't have any at all. Except St Valentine's Day. Now this is all rather odd because there are two possible Valentines after whom the day is named. one was an early Christian priest put to death in the reign of Claudius the Goth (you couldn't miss him - black hair, purple makeup, didn't like sunlight). The other one was the Bishop of Turin, executed in Rome in a similar clampdown against what was, after all, a heretical sect. neither of these men had anything to do with Love, Hearts, Cupid or nauseatingly schmaltzy greetings cards, so work it out for yourselves. It may be that the 14th of February was seen as the start of the mating season, but this is a Family Blog so we won't pursue that.
All we can be sure of is that in Chicago in 1929 the day was celebrated by Al Capone shooting seven of 'Bugs' Moran's heavies in a garage on the North Side. Three of the five executioners wore police uniforms, though whether they were real cops or just Capone's people in fancy dress was open to doubt. Since half of Chicago's finest were under investigation for corruption at the time, you just couldn't be sure.
In other news ...
Richard II died today in 1400. I've always felt rather sorry for this guy. He was high-handed, didn't like the Irish and popularized the use of a) forks b) handkerchiefs and c) riding sidesaddle - for ladies of course; nothing 'funny' about Richard II. He also had a cool heraldic badge - the White Hart (that's a deer to you, Seven Emm Eff) now famous as a pub sign throughout the civilized world. He was almost certainly murdered in Pontefract Castle (or Pomfret, as Shakespeare called it, thereby proving that England's greatest playwright was also dyslexic) on the orders of Henry IV (who later, as you'd expect, denied it).
