this doesn't work in the UK, as

March 3, 2002

is not a valid date string. I'll post my solution direct to the OP.

Really? I have no experience with international units, but I figured the
Excel date engine would work the same as the VB/VBA date engine... if the
date engine could interpret something as a date in **any** possible way,
then that is how it interprets it. I'm guessing, based on your posting, that
for the Excel spreadsheet world, this is not the case. Thanks for letting me
know.

Rick