Dates in Excel97

there is a free add in here for earlier dates
http://j-walk.com/ss//excel/files/xdate.htm

if it's just a sorting issue and you don't need to do calculations with the dates consider inputting the dates as numbers like yyyymmdd, so the 2nd March 1763 would be

17630302

custom format cells as 0000-00-00 to make "dates" easier to read

Originally Posted by martindwilson

there is a free add in here for earlier dates
http://j-walk.com/ss//excel/files/xdate.htm

Thanks for your help the addin sorted the problem.
http://www.excelforum.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Thanks to everyone else who took the time to answer my problem.