title: Why does converting a blank string to a date in SQL Server result in 1900-01-01?
body: <p>Running a simple T-SQL query of <code>SELECT CONVERT(date, '')</code> will render a result of <code>1900-01-01</code>. It seems to me that it would be more consistent to convert a blank string to either <code>1753-01-01</code> (the minimum allowable date value) or <code>NULL</code>. 1900 just seems so arbitrary, but I assume this was a deliberate design choice made by the MS SQL programmers. What is the purpose of this functionality? </p>