# Mystery date in Excel 2007



## The Cowboy Man (Jul 11, 2011)

Is there anything of significance that happened on March 14th, 2001? I have noticed, that in Microsoft Excel, 2007, on the home tab in the number dialogue box, when you choose for your data to be displayed as a date, the sample date formats (3/14, 03/14/01, 14-Mar, etc.) all appear to be March 14th, 2001. Why March 14th, 2001? I am only lead to assume that this is an 'Easter egg' left to us by a Microsoft employee, perhaps a birthday, or an important date in the company's history. I have searched the internet with no luck. Can anybody help me get to the bottom of this mystery? Is this date also in other versions of excel ?


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## Glaswegian (Sep 16, 2005)

Nothing sinister that I'm aware of - my version of 2010 is exactly the same, as is 2002. I suspect this was a date chosen when 2002 was being written and they have never changed it - that's my best guess. Otherwise it was just a sample date chosen at random.


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