Y1.9K ?

[jsv@stat.ohio-state.edu]

As I was importing an Excel file (version apparently not
important into Splus (version 6.2.1 for Windows), an odd thing
happened.  One of the "date" columns (date of birth) was being
read as a factor variable rather than a timeDate variable.
Upon further examination, I noticed that two of the dates were
pre 1900.  When I changed these to post 1900, the data
read in correctly as timeDate (which I could easily edit back
to the correct dates).  The format in the Excel file was
"mm/dd/yyyy".  Any explanation for this behavior?