Trying to strftime() a datetime before 1900? The Python source says:

/* Give up if the year is before 1900.
 * Python strftime() plays games with the year, and different
 * games depending on whether envar PYTHON2K is set.  This makes
 * years before 1900 a nightmare, even if the platform strftime
 * supports them (and not all do).
 * We could get a lot farther here by avoiding Python's strftime
 * wrapper and calling the C strftime() directly, but that isn't
 * an option in the Python implementation of this module.
 */

BItten again. Previous projects where I have hit this problem I've been safely able to ignore it. Ignoring Noel Coward, Humphrey Bogart or Duke Ellington's date of birth is going to be difficult. Ignoring nearly all classical music is going to be pretty much impossible. Some thought is clearly required. I have a feeling it's not vitally important to get it 100% right, but something needs to be done if only to disambiguate the two Engelbert Humperdincks.