title: Python ValueError: time data does not match format ' %H:%M %d/%m/%Y'
body: <p>I am continually getting this string formatting error, but I cannot find what doesn't match properly. I've tried removing the leading space from the format string, but that does not make a difference. I'm using Python 3.5 on OSX 10.11.5</p>
  
  <pre><code>ValueError: time data ' 00:59 03/20/1978' does not match format ' %H:%M %d/%m/%Y'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The function call, in case there's a culprit farther back:</p>
  
  <pre><code>def bytedate2num(fmt):
      def converter(b):
          return mdates.strpdate2num(fmt)(b.decode('ascii'))
      return converter
  
  date_converter = bytedate2num(' %H:%M %d/%m/%Y')
  
  def get_events(fname):
      events = []
      events.append(np.loadtxt(fname, comments = '#', delimiter='\t', converters = {0 : date_converter}))
      return events     
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any suggestions are much appreciated, since this function is responsible for gathering all the data to analyze.</p>