The value of this constant is equivalent to 00:00:00.0000000, January 1, 0001.

DateTime.MinValue defines the date and time that is assigned to an uninitialized DateTime variable. The following example illustrates this.

code reference: System.DateTime.MinValue#1

The DateTime.MinValue and DateTime.MaxValue properties can be used to ensure that a value lies within the supported range before passing it to a DateTime constructor. The code in the Example section illustrates this usage.

Namespace: System
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)
Assembly Versions: 1.0.5000.0, 2.0.0.0, 4.0.0.0