With February 14 fast approaching, many loved-up couples are hastily planning dinners, buying gifts and setting up dating partners. But, in some parts of the world, Valentine's Day is more than handing your partner a bouquet of flowers or serenading them with poetry - it involves some intense and rather bizarre practices in declaring your love.

Elizabeth Nelson, an associate professor of history at University of Nevada Las Vegas, has examined the "hidden history of Valentine’s Day." Beyond the pressures of consumer culture, or any outsized emphasis on romantic love, she says there's been a yearning for something more sincere "from the very beginning."

Valentine's Day falls on February 14—a day when lovers show their appreciation for each other, through romantic poems, letters, cards, chocolates, roses, or other gifts.

It was Valentine’s Day 1917 in the Minnesota farming village of Lewiston, and Fred Roth — a fourth grader — seems to have come up with just the way to express his love for his sweetheart, Louise Wirt. He gave her a card.

It was Valentine’s Day 1917 in the Minnesota farming village of Lewiston, and Fred Roth — a fourth grader — seems to have come up with just the way to express his love for his sweetheart, Louise Wirt. He gave her a card.

It was Valentine’s Day 1917 in the Minnesota farming village of Lewiston, and Fred Roth — a fourth grader — seems to have come up with just the way to express his love for his sweetheart, Louise Wirt. He gave her a card.

Celebrating Valentine’s Day in the United States comes with multiple go-to practices. Offering a bouquet of red roses to your beloved. Purchasing a card with a heartfelt message. Sharing a candlelit meal with your partner. Giving a heart-shaped box of delicious chocolates.

Cowboys in the Old West worked up voracious appetites. It took a lot of calories to sustain their long days of grueling physical labor, especially on long cattle drives. So it's no wonder that cowboys not only relished their meals at the end of a day, but treated them as nearly sacred.