August » 2011 » Jiyolive.com

CHILDREN’S DAY

14 November, as you all know, is celebrated as Children’s Day because it is the birthday of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India. He loved children and to them he was simply Chacha Nehru. Once while addressing children, he told them, “I like being with you and talking to you and , even more, playing with you … I would like to talk to you about this beautiful world of ours, about flowers and trees and birds and animals and stars and mountains and glaciers and all the wonderful things that surround us in the world …The world itself is the greatest fairy tale and story of adventure that was ever written. Only we must have eyes to see and ears to hear and a mind that opens to the life and beauty of the world.”

Read the rest of this entry »

VALENTINE’S DAY

Valentine’s Day is celebrated in memory of Valentine, a priest who lived in Roman times.
A story goes that when Emperor Claudius II ruled over Rome in the 3^rd century, he did not allow soldiers to marry as he felt that single men made better soldiers. However, the soldiers were married off secretly by Valentine. When the emperor found out, he was furious and had the priest imprisoned.
While in jail, Valentine fell in love with the jailor’s daughter. Just before the execution, he sent her a farewell note signed ‘From your Valentine’- an expression that is still in use today.
The oldest valentine poem still in existence is the one the Duke of Orleans sent to his wife in 1415, when he was held captive at the Tower of London.
The Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare’s Lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine’s day.
According to the Greeting Cards Association, an estimated one billion cards are sent annually on Valentine’s Day, making it the second largest card sending event after Christmas.