Minimum date in Java

Question

What is the minimum date value in Java?

Answer 1

Don't forget that Date constructor happily accepts negative values.

Date date = new Date(Long.MIN_VALUE); 

returns

Sun Dec 02 22:47:04 BDT 292269055

I guess that's about the time of Big Bang dinosaurs :)

EDIT

As martin clayton answered, you can use the Calendar class to check the era. This will output 0 which stands for BCE:

Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance(); calendar.setTime(new Date(Long.MIN_VALUE)); System.out.println(calendar.get(Calendar.ERA));