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Scatterbrained is a new trivia show in which different hosts do a deep dive into one topic. Today, we're learning all about Valentine's Day - from love celebrations around the world to some of nature's most devoted pairs!
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Valentine's Day - Mental Floss Scatterbrained | Mental Floss
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Hello and welcome to Mental Floss Video. Today we're going to talk about Valentine's Day
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a holiday that everyone loves equally and no one ever complains about or says is overrated
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Okay, let's get started. Let's begin with some quick Valentine's Day facts
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The oldest known Valentine was written by the Duke of Orleans in 1415 CE
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It was a poem titled Farewell to Love that he wrote for his wife while he was in prison
0:33
in the Tower of London. It refers to her as his Valentine
0:37
In Geoffrey Chaucer's poem The Parliament of Fowls, he claims that birds choose mates
0:42
on Valentine's Day. But February is rather cold for birds to start mating in England, so some historians have
0:48
proposed that he was referring to the feast day of a different St. Valentine, St. Valentine
0:53
of Genoa, who was celebrated in early May. These historians argue that over the years, the two separate Valentine's days got confused
1:00
and the more famous February date won. Other historians argue that there are other examples of mid-February fertility rites
1:08
and Chaucer likely was referring to February 14th. It's still unclear. For at least a few decades up through the early 1900s, Americans and Brits sometimes
1:16
sent vinegar Valentines. They were basically the opposite of Valentines, funny, insulting cards
1:23
Scholars aren't quite sure whether they were truly meant to be insulting or an innocuous way to tease a friend
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Jumping way forward in time, on February 14th, 2011, redheads were given free admission to the Charles Scholes Museum in Santa Rosa, California
1:37
Scholes authored the Peanuts comic strips, and as you may know, Charlie Brown had a crush on a red-haired girl for many years
1:44
So, this was a way to honor Charlie's crush. We're expected to send out 144 million cards on Valentine's Day in 2018
1:52
It's in second place for the most popular greeting card holiday, after Christmas
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And Hallmark claims that about half of Americans buy at least one card for Valentine's Day
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But they're definitely buying other stuff too. The National Retail Federation announced on February 1st, 2017
2:08
that Americans would spend an average of $136.57 on Valentine's gifts that year
2:15
The figure accounted for jewelry, flowers, cards, candy, and dates. There's always the homemade gift route
2:21
The Passion Pit album Chunk of Change was originally written as a Valentine's Day gift
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Michael Angelacos, the band's lead singer, wrote it for his girlfriend at the time
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The famous love image by Robert Indiana was put on a postal stamp in 1973 for Valentine's Day
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The U.S. Post Office ended up selling over 300 million stamps, making $25 million
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The U.S. Post Office is rich as hell. Nowadays you can think of Valentine Day without thinking about candy But that wasn always the case so let dive into the history of Valentine Day candy During the early 19th century CE England middle class was finally able to afford chocolate
3:05
after many years of it being a food exclusive to the rich. And not long after, in 1861, Richard Cadbury, son of the famous company's founder
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started putting chocolate in boxes. He called them fancy boxes. Another candy you can't escape on February 14th is Conversation Hearts, the worst candy of all time
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The idea of printing text on candy was thanks to a man named Daniel Chase for NECO in 1866
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Eventually, the sayings would be put on little candy hearts. Just two years later, Cadbury had fancy boxes produced in heart shapes for Valentine's Day
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The candy industry was catching on. They had their own publication in the U.S. Confectioner's Journal
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and in 1892, an article referred to Valentines as cheap and grotesque
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but a separate article on the same issue wrote that if confectioners were to give some attention
3:51
to Valentine's Day, they would definitely profit. In 1907, Hershey's Kisses debuted
3:57
They weren't necessarily Valentine-themed at the time, but come on, with a name like that, it was inevitable
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Another company that knows how to capitalize on Valentine's Day, Dove, founded in 1956
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though it was an ice cream company at the time. 30 years later, Hershey's started wrapping kisses in pink and red
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I'm honestly surprised it took that long. And finally, in 2017, the National Retail Federation
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estimated that people spend about $1.7 billion on Valentine's candy. It's definitely looking like the confectioner's journal was right
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Alright, fellow single ladies, rejoice. Talking about Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is catching on in many countries around the world
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and others have their own holidays or ways to celebrate love. Like, in South Korea, they have two similar holidays
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They do celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14th, but on that day, women give the candy and gifts
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Then, on March 14th, also known as White Day, it's the men's turn to buy the gifts! Equality
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There's also a Black Day on April 14th for single people to celebrate or feel bad for themselves
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That's me, eating 짜증면, by myself. Japan has similar customs. The women give gifts on Valentine's Day, then White Day is celebrated the following month
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Women spoil their significant others in particular, But there's also something known as geritoko, which translates to obligation chocolates
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Women give these to classmates, co-workers, and friends so that no one feels left out
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Hence obligation. Their tradition started around the 1980s. The Love Spoon from Wales is one way that love has been celebrated historically
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Welsh men carved spoons for the woman they loved. The oldest known one is from 1667, and the spoons had detailed handles with symbolic meanings
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Some sources will tell you that this was an exclusively Welsh tradition, but there are
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similar looking spoons found all over Turns out that fancy spoons can be attributed to one specific place but feel free to spoon me at my place Brazil mostly doesn celebrate Valentine Day but they do have their own holiday for
6:03
love that's celebrated in a very similar manner. They honor Saint Anthony every June 12th on the eve of his feast day
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Saint Anthony is known for many things, one of which is marriage. The holiday is known as Dia dos Namorados, which means lover's day
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Finland celebrates Friends Day on February 14th. It's also celebrated similarly to Valentine's Day, but everyone exchanges little gifts rather than just couples
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Sounds like my kind of holiday. Except they probably don't give each other love spoons, just like chocolate and stuff
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If you're looking to buy or sell a diamond ring, Mantle Floss is here to help you profit as much as possible
6:43
So, let me tell you about a study about ring value that was published in 2016 by the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management
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For 13 months, researcher Ann Bowers took data from 1.5 million diamond solitaire engagement rings on eBay
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Some of the listings included a negative backstory with phrases like, not gonna happen, and right ring, wrong guy
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And others didn't. Bowers found that rings from failed relationships weren't as likely to sell
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Plus, when they did sell, it was for lower prices. Bowers also conducted a survey
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It turned out that people believed a diamond ring from a divorce was more likely to be authentic than one from a lasting marriage or a jewelry store
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Yet, they still would pay more for the latter two options. I mean, I get it. People don't want to buy an unlucky ring. Why risk it
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If you're planning to sell a ring sometime soon, Professor Bowers would remind you to think about social characteristics in addition to physical ones
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She also might suggest that you don't sell it online. In her words, actual purchases versus number of rings listed suggest that sales are really rare in online markets no matter what the reason
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Anecdotally speaking, if you want money quickly, the best hope you have is to try to sell it back to the jeweler you bought it from, but be prepared to take a big loss
8:06
Obviously animals don't celebrate Valentine's Day, but some of them do celebrate love
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Aw, it's so sweet. Anyway, let's talk about parasites. The Schistosoma mansoni, also known as a blood fluke, is a worm that gets through human skin
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via a hair follicle, and then their larvae head toward the human heart and then eventually
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to the liver where they find a mate to go to the mecentric veins together
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And there they procreate so that the female can lay hundreds of eggs every day
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Basically, what I'm telling you is that blood flukes are monogamous for years at a time
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although there are some divorces in the blood fluke community. Black vultures are also monogamous
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One research paper from the 1990s looked at DNA from 16 separate vulture families, and
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it found that all of the vulture nestlings had come from monogamous pairings Vultures are also known for co They alternate incubating egg duty and for eight months they both feed the babies Additionally vultures are known for being harbingers of death I sorry I know that not directly related to Valentine Day but this is tangentially related
9:05
Okay, let's move on to prairie voles, a type of North American rodent who are also well-known co-parenters
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Their lives can be quite short, about one to three years on average, so it makes sense for them to pair up quickly and breed as much as possible
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Prairie voles aren't 100% monogamous, but many females and males do have multiple litters together
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Scientists consider it to be social monogamy because males will mate with other females
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but they'll always go back to their original mate. Voles even experience a kind of grief when they lose their mate
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According to one study, less than 20% of prairie voles who lose a mate ever find a new one
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Listen up, scientists. It's okay that we know that, but don't tell that to prairie voles, especially not prairie
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voles who've just been dumped. Interestingly, before mating, a male prairie vole literally can't tell females apart
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but afterwards they can distinguish between females based on their scent and look, and
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they much prefer their mate to any other female. Their brains literally change when they find a partner
10:00
Then there's the shingleback skink, a lizard from Australia also known for its monogamy
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Some of these lizards maintain the same partner for over 20 years
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And the courtship that leads to that monogamy can last for months
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in the 1990s found that 82% of male shingleback skinks stayed monogamous
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As for why, experts believe that it's a strength in numbers thing
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The male lizard can look out for the pregnant female and help protect her from predators
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which is also good for the male because, you know, he wants his babies to be born, not eaten
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Bald eagles are also monogamous. They usually meet their mate when they're around 5 years old, and relationships last
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for about 20 years, although they will find a new mate if theirs dies or is infertile
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They have some interesting methods of courtship too, like they do something known as the cartwheel
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display, where two bald eagles lock their talons together up in the sky and then cartwheel downward
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According to wildlife ecologist David Buehler, this is done in order to determine the fitness
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of your mate. French angelfish are also lifelong social monogamous, like prairie voles
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They like to hang out in pairs, but their idea of hanging out can be really intense
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like they violently defend their territory and chase other French angelfish away
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It's actually possible that they're what's called genetically monogamous, that they do mate for life, unlike social monogamy, but that hasn't been studied enough yet
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We don't have nearly enough research dollars going into French angelfish. Thank you
#education