Dates Not Recognized as Dates: Dates before 1900 in Excel 2007:-


In Excel 2007, dates from January 1, 1900, through December 31, 9999, are recognized as valid dates. If you happen to be a company that was founded more than a demisesquicentennial before Microsoft was founded, however, you will potentially have company history going back before 1900.

Figure (given below) shows a dataset stretching from 1787 through 1959. The accompanying chart would lead the reader to believe that the number of states in the United States grew at a constant rate, a statement that would cause Mr. Kessel, my eighth-grade geography teacher, to give me an F for this book.



(Dates from before 1900 are not valid Excel dates. A date based axis is not possible in this case.)

Formatting the chart to have a date-based axis does not work because Excel does not recognize dates before 1900 as valid dates.