Default date 15101582?

Question

I am working with a dataset that has a date field which in DDMMYYYY format (nvarchar(8)). I know that date for a DATETIME variable can range from January 1, 1753 to December 31, 9999. So when I try to CAST 15101582 as DATETIME, it wouldnt cast. It must be set so, so it cannot be treated as a valid date.

Question is why this date? Can you think of any logical reason for this?

Thanks

Answer 1

I realise this post is a year old, but for anyone else who is interested, 15/10/1582 is the first date on the Gregorian calendar, being the day after 04/10/1582 on the Julian calendar (10 days skipped to bring the year back into line when calendar was switched). I thought this was a specific code in my data to begin with but it is likely just a default date from somewhere, similar to 01/01/1600.

Cheers