How do I subtract today's date from one before 1900?

[Bob Martin]

I'm attempting to create an Excel timeline of battles and major eveins in
United States history. I want one of the column's to show how many years it
has been since that date.
For example, say A6 has July 4, 1776. Cell A1 has the formula =Today()
Every time I use the formula =Year(A1)-Year(A6) I get an error message in
the cell.

 

[Gary''s Student]

Sadly, dates only go back to 1900.

 

[Dave Peterson]

The bad news is excel only supports dates since 1900.

But John Walkenbach has an addin that will help you:
http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/files/xdate.htm

 

[Chris Lavender]

Have a look at

http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/usertips/tip028.htm

for help with dates

Best rgds
Chris Lav