In January 1848, James Marshall was inspecting the building of a saw mill for his employer, when he saw an unusual rock glinting in the upturned earth.

He was not sure whether it was gold or not and did not want to get people’s aspirations up. So Marshall attempted to break the yellow rock with a hammer. It did not crack, but it did dent. just like gold would. The woman who was cooking meals for the saw mill construction crew, tried another test by boiling the rock in lye.

They boiled it all day, but it did not change colour. So, they passed the rock over to the mill’s owner, Mr. John Sutter, who also conducted a few tests. In the end, everyone agreed that this rock was indeed gold.

It seems that the Sierra Nevada Mountains hid huge hordes of gold, but that over tens of thousands of years, erosion had loosened up gold nuggets and the mountain streams flushed them down to the bottom of the mountains. Sutter’s property was situated between two rivers and so was likely to generate great wealth.

The reason people invite guests to their wedding is obvious. For them to witness the union of their friends or relatives in marriage and to share their joy. Wedding gifts are optional but most guests will at least bring something small as a token of their best wishes.

Some believe that given the amount of money spent by the couple on providing food and entertainment for their guests, that the guests should repay them with gifts of great expense or even cash, although traditionalists would beg to differ.

Quite a common way of organising the gift giving at a wedding is for the couple to register for gifts from a particular shop or chain of shops. When the bride and groom register for gifts they will usually make up a list of gift ideas that they would like to receive from the guests and the list will usually be comprised of general household necessities such as china and silverware.

This method is often preferred by wedding guests because it allows them to be comfortable in the knowledge that the couple defiantly want what they’ve bought them and it will be valuable in their life together.

Many believe that the history of this holiday that is celebrated on February 14th every year is based on the story of early Roman times. A man named Valentine was a clergyman and that the ruler at the time was a fellow called Claudius II, an emperor, who was ruling Rome.

A popular version of the history of this holiday is that Valentine was a priest and that an emperor by the name of Claudius II was ruling Rome. Claudius believed that single men made better soldiers because they were not distracted by thoughts of love and would not allow members of his army to marry. Supposedly, Valentine did not believe this and secretly performed marriage It is thought that the history of Valentine’s Day goes back to the third century in Rome. Some say that Valentine was an imprisoned man who had fallen deeply in love with the daughter of the jailor. Just before he was to be executed, he wrote a love letter to the young lady, proclaiming his love and signed the letter ‘from your Valentine’. The same message is used in Valentine’s Day cards to this day, and also stamped on candy and gifts.