Pandas Date %y defaults to 20xx instead of 19xx

Question

I have a date like: 28.01.58

I am trying to convert using:

df['date'] = pd.to_datetime(df['date'], format='%d.%m.%y')

Pandas returns: 2058-01-28

My expected return: 1958-01-28

Answer 1

Unfortunately because of Y2K shenanigans, pandas works implicitly with 2 digit years, as a fix for this you can try

df['date'] = pd.to_datetime(df['date'].str[:-2]+'20'+df['date'].str[-2:], format='%d.%m.%y')